gelso

Forms

gelso m (plural gelsi)^[1] Dialect forms include Sicilian ceusu,^[2] Neapolitan cieuzo and, in older northern Italian, cielso in Boiardo.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin celsa (“tall”), short for mōrus celsa (“tall mulberry”).^[4][5][6][1] The adjective named the tall tree that bears mulberries, as against the low bramble that bears blackberries.^[4][5][6][7] Isidore of Seville already says that the Latins give the tree its name because of its height, unlike the low mōrus.^[3] Nocentini holds that the feminine passed into the masculine of the tree names.^[5] Devoto explains the initial /dʒ/ of the word as a voicing of Latin /k/, the phrase having first been handed down as one word.^[8]

The two parts of the phrase went separate ways.^[4] The type moro spread in the north and in Umbria and the Marche, the type of the headword in Lazio and the south, and the two meet in Tuscany.^[4][5] The full phrase survives in Old Logudorese murikersa and Campidanese murugessa,^[9][10] and Berber took the word over.^[9][10]

Latin celsus (“high, lofty”) was originally the past participle of a verb *cellō that is not found on its own, only in excellō (“to rise above, excel”).^[5][11][1] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kelH- (“to rise”), the root of collis (“hill”).^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Dante, 1313–1319, and the TLIO's in the Tuscan Milione of the early 14th century, where Marco Polo describes a tree called gelso, “the tree whose leaves are eaten by the worms that make silk”.^[4][12][6] Nocentini dates the word to the end of the 13th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used gelso for both the tree and its fruit, and had the phrases moro gelso and mora gelsa.^[12] The kinds were soon told apart: Saviozzo, before 1420, writes of bianchi gelsi e moro gelso, and the black mulberry, gelso nero, is named in D'Alberti's dictionary in 1798.^[4]

The white mulberry mattered most because its leaves fed silkworms, while the black one was grown for its fruit, eaten and used in medicine.^[13][3] In the north the popular words long stayed others: in 1846 Carlo Cattaneo complained that people there still said moro, morone or moraro rather than gelso.^[4] Derivatives followed with silk farming: gelseto, a mulberry plantation (1835), gelsicoltura (1870) and gelsicoltore (1956).^[4]

Timeline

• 1313–1319 – Dante uses gelso.^[4][6]
• Early 14th century – The Tuscan Milione names the mulberry tree that feeds silkworms.^[4][12]
• 1368 – A Sicilian translation of Giordano Ruffo's treatise on horse medicine has the word.^[12]
• Before 1420 – Saviozzo writes of white mulberries and the moro gelso.^[4]
• 1798 – Gelso nero appears in D'Alberti's dictionary.^[4]
• 1846 – Carlo Cattaneo notes that northern Italians still say moro instead.^[4]
• 1870 – Gelsicoltura is first recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) The mulberry tree, a tree of the genus Morus, especially the white mulberry, whose leaves are fed to silkworms, and the black mulberry, grown for its fruit.^{[6][14][13][1]}
2. (botany) In gelso da carta (also gelso della Cina or del Giappone): the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera).^[13][6]

Word family

• gelsa
• gelseto
• gelsicoltura
• gelsicoltore

Related words

• moro
• eccelso
• Latin celsus
• Latin morus

Usage notes

The tree is gelso bianco or gelso nero by the colour of its fruit, which is called mora di gelso or gelsa.^[14][13] Moro is the same tree's other name, northern in origin.^[15][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 13, 789
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1780
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse