gambero

Forms

gambero m (plural gamberi)^[1] The TLIO lists the old forms Old Italian gambaro, ganbero and gammari (plural).^[2] The form Venetian gàmbaro is recorded at Venice from 1424.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cambarus, recorded also as gambarus in Oribasius, a variant of Latin cammarus (“lobster; crayfish”).^{[4][5][6][7][1]} The classical word is from Ancient Greek κάμμαρος (kámmaros), borrowed early and recorded in Latin from Varro on.^[4][8][9] DELI notes that the Greek word itself is still unexplained, and Wiktionary's Latin entry calls it Pre-Greek.^[4][1]

The ⟨mb⟩ of the Late Latin form is explained in two ways.^[4][8] DELI and Nocentini see the influence of camba, gamba (“leg”), and DELI prefers this to a doubtful hypercorrection.^[4][10][11] DEI calls the form hyper-urban, and Devoto explains that the cluster ⟨mm⟩ was taken for rustic and wrongly corrected to ⟨mb⟩.^[8][12] The grammarian Caper, in the 2nd century, condemns the form with ⟨mb⟩, which is therefore the popular one.^[3] The ⟨e⟩ of the second syllable is the Tuscan change of unstressed ⟨ar⟩ to ⟨er⟩.^[12]

The LEI separates two Romance types.^[3] The type with initial ⟨c⟩ lives on in Franco-Provençal, in Old Occitan chambre (1387), in Asturian cámbaro, in Sardinian kámbaru and in central and southern Italian forms.^[3] The type with ⟨g⟩, the 6th-century form of Oribasius, is the one of standard Italian, of Friulian giambar and of Spanish gámbaro (1490).^[3][10] camarón and Portuguese camarão are derivatives.^[10][13] The word exists across the Romance languages except Romanian, and in French it survives only in southern dialects.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Mare amoroso, a Florentine text of the last decade of the 13th century.^[2] The TLIO defines the word there as a crustacean of fresh or salt water with a typical backward gait.^[2] DELI dates it to the 13th century in a translation of Brunetto Latini.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for the zodiac sign of Cancer.^[2] The backward movement of the animal gave fare come i gamberi, “to go backwards”, and figuratively “to make no progress, to regress”, and its colour when cooked gave rosso come un gambero, said of a face red with shame, anger or the sun.^[5][6][14] GRADIT also records a figurative sense “blunder”, like granchio.^[5]

In zoology the name covers several decapods, among them gambero di fiume, the freshwater astaco, and gambero di mare, the astice.^[14][7][15] The diminutive gamberetto is recorded before 1617 for small marine crustaceans with claws on the first three pairs of legs, and before 1742 as a plain diminutive.^[4] In music, a canone a gambero is a crab canon, and heraldry has the crayfish as a charge.^[5][16]

Timeline

• 6th century – Oribasius uses Late Latin gambarus.^[4][3]
• 1290s – Gambero appears in the Florentine Mare amoroso.^[2]
• 1387 – Old Occitan chambre “crayfish” is recorded.^[3]
• 1424 – Venetian gàmbaro is recorded.^[3]
• Before 1617 – Bernardino Baldi uses gamberetto for small marine crustaceans.^[4]
• Before 1742 – Gamberetto as a diminutive of gambero, in G. B. Fagiuoli.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. prawn, shrimp: a small crustacean that moves backwards, prized as food and pink or red once cooked: Ho ordinato un piatto di gamberi fritti.^[5][1]
2. (zoology) The common name of various decapod crustaceans of fresh and salt water with a long body and claws, such as the crayfish and the lobster.^{[5][6][11][7]}
3. (figurative) A blunder, a mistake.^[5]

Word family

• gamberetto
• gamberone
• gamberello
• gamberessa

Related words

• astice
• astaco
• Latin cammarus

Usage notes

Fare come i gamberi (to go backwards, to regress) and rosso come un gambero (red in the face) are common idioms.^[5][14][6] A joking feminine gamberessa exists.^[11][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org