Etymologically
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giallo

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈd͡ʒal.lo/[1]

Forms

giallo (feminine gialla, masculine plural gialli, feminine plural gialle, superlative giallissimo); as a noun giallo m (plural gialli).[1] Old forms include Old Italian gialdo, Old Italian zallo, Old Italian zalo and Old Italian çallo, mostly from northern Italy.[2] The northern gialdo is still alive in the dialects of the north.[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French jalne, the older form of French jaune, from Latin galbinus (“pale green, greenish yellow”), a derivative of galbus (“pale green, yellow”).[4][5][6][1] Tuscan adapted the French word;[7][8] Körting already noted that the Italian form cannot come from the Latin word directly, only through French.[7][8] The Latin adjective survives as an inherited word only in northern France and in Romanian galben.[4][9] The French word spread widely: it reached the Italian dialects, and was borrowed as Spanish jalde and Portuguese jalne.[7][5][9]

The Latin words are recorded only from the imperial period, and DELI takes their late appearance as a sign of foreign origin.[4][10] Nocentini connects them with the Indo-European source of German gelb and English yellow, but since the sound changes are not the regular Latin ones he suspects a loan from Celtic or Germanic.[5] Wiktionary's Latin entry calls the origin unknown and keeps the Germanic words apart, relating them to Latin helvus instead.[1] Older scholars, Diez and Zaccaria, derived the Italian word from Old High German gelo (“yellow”);[8][11] Körting gives Diez's view and rejects a direct link.[8][11]

Northern texts from the 15th century have the variant Old Italian gialdo, already as Medieval Latin ialdus in Latin documents, and Guido Guinizelli used the unadapted Gallicism Old Italian giano.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, from the last quarter of the 12th century.[2] DELI and GRADIT date the word to before 1276, in Guido Guinizelli, who writes: Verde river' a lei rassembro e l'aire, / tutti color di fior, giallo e vermiglio (“I liken her to a green riverbank and to the air, to all colours of flowers, yellow and vermilion”).[4][6][12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the colour was compared to sulphur and gold, and a denaro giallo was a gold coin as opposed to white silver.[2] A libro giallo was an account book named after its cover, the sallow skin of jaundice and hunger was giallo, and so were blond hair and the yolk of an egg, il giallo dell'uovo.[2] Boccaccio uses it for a pale, waxy face (1362–64).[4]

Several modern phrases follow foreign models: stampa gialla copies the American yellow press, named after the comic strip The Yellow Kid (1894); pericolo giallo translates the German gelbe Gefahr of about 1900; and sindacato giallo, a union opposed to the socialist “red” ones, follows the French syndicat jaune of 1899–1900.[4] Only Italian calls a detective story a giallo, after the yellow covers of the crime series that Mondadori began publishing in 1929; this use is recorded from 1935.[4][5][1] The press later extended it to any case wrapped in mystery.[4][6] German borrowed Giallo for the colour (1865) and for a yellow marble.[13]

Timeline

  • Last quarter of the 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur has the first record.[2]
  • Before 1276 – Guido Guinizelli uses giallo.[4][6]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses the noun for the yellow part of something.[4]
  • 1362–1364 – Boccaccio uses it for “pale, waxy”.[4]
  • Before 1406 – Giallume and gialliccio appear in Francesco da Buti.[4]
  • 1929 – Mondadori starts its yellow-covered series of crime novels.[4][1]
  • 1935 – Giallo is recorded for a detective story.[4]
  • 1958 – Giallorosa, a crime story with a love plot and a happy ending, is recorded.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. yellow: of the colour between orange and green, like a lemon or gold: Ha dipinto la porta di giallo e le finestre di blu.[6][14][15]
  2. Of the face: pale, sallow from illness or strong emotion: Dopo la traversata era giallo in viso.[6][14][16]
  3. Of a novel, play or film: about a crime and its detection: Stasera in televisione danno un film giallo.[6][14][16]
  4. (dated, often offensive) East Asian, in phrases such as razza gialla and pericolo giallo.[16][15][17]

Noun

  1. The colour yellow: Il giallo ti dona più del rosso.[6][15][16]
  2. The amber light of a traffic signal.[15][1]
  3. The yellow part of something, as in il giallo dell'uovo “the egg yolk”.[6]
  4. A detective story, crime novel or film; also the genre: D'estate leggo almeno un giallo alla settimana.[6][15][1]
  5. By extension, a puzzling criminal case or mystery: La scomparsa dei documenti resta un giallo.[6][15][1]

Word family

  • giallastro
  • gialliccio
  • giallognolo
  • giallume
  • giallorosa
  • giallorosso
  • ingiallire
  • giallista

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include farina gialla “maize flour”, febbre gialla “yellow fever”, pagine gialle “yellow pages”, cartellino giallo “yellow card” and Fiamme Gialle, the Guardia di Finanza.[16][14][17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 500
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1803
  8. ^ a b c d Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6
  11. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
  12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  13. ^ Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  14. ^ 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
  15. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  16. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  17. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli