gorgoglione

Forms

gorgoglione m (plural gorgoglioni)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gurguliō (from the accusative), a variant of the more common curculiō (“corn weevil”), a popular word with expressive reduplication.^[2][3][4] Nocentini starts from the accusative of that word itself and lists the cognates French gourgouillon (obsolete), Occitan gorgolh, Catalan corcoll, Spanish gorgojo and Portuguese gorgulho.^[5] Battisti and Alessio explain the voiced initial, which prevails in Romance, by popular association with the homonymous Latin word meaning “gullet”, through the idea of voracity.^[6] A variant Old Italian gorgoglio, used in the Tuscan Crescenzi and by Cecchi, probably continues the Latin nominative.^[7][1]

De Vaan sees the Latin word for the weevil as an intensive reduplication, with dissimilation of the second /r/ to /l/, and thinks it more likely related to the word for the gullet than to curvus (“curved”).^[8] Nocentini traces it to the root of cariēs (“decay”), with the vowel /u/ and the reduplication due to secondary onomatopoeia.^[5] The learned doublet is curculione (18th century).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini and GRADIT date the word before 1320.^[5][3] The TLIO's first text is the Tuscan translation of Palladius (first half of the 14th century), which names things that keep away gorgoglioni and mice, the pests of grain and pulses.^[9][10] DELI's first record, the Tuscan Crescenzi of around 1350, already has the sense “aphid”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the parasite of grain and pulses, the weevil (tonchio).^[9][10][7] In modern zoological usage it is the common name of aphids and other plant-sucking insects.^[3][11][12] Sabatini–Coletti names the rose aphid as the best known.^[11] Zingarelli and Gabrielli still give the sense “weevil” beside “aphid”.^[4][13] Following Plautus' figurative Latin, the word has also been used for a parasite in the human sense.^[6][14]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – first record of gorgoglione, as GRADIT and Nocentini date it.^[3][5]
• First half of the 1300s – the Tuscan Palladius names gorgoglioni among the pests of stored grain.^[9]
• About 1350 – the Tuscan Crescenzi uses the word for the aphid.^[2]
• 1700s – the learned doublet curculione is first recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) aphid: the common name of various plant-sucking insects of the family Aphididae, parasites of plants.^[3][14][11]
2. (zoology) A weevil; a tonchio.^[4][13][14]
3. (literary) A parasite, in the literal or figurative sense.^[14]

Related words

• curculione
• tonchio
• gorgogliare
• Latin curculiō

Usage notes

A regional gorgoglione, recorded in 1856, is a name of the European bee-eater (gruccione); GRADIT derives it from gorgogliare with the suffix -one.^[3][12][1] Battisti and Alessio suggest the bird was named for its call or its greed (it is fond of bees).^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1847
7. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
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