gorgozzule

Forms

gorgozzule m (plural gorgozzuli)^[1][2] Old forms include Old Italian gorgozzulo, Old Italian gorguzzolo and Old Italian ghorghozule.^[2][3] A variant gorgozzuolo is recorded from the 16th century.^[4]

Etymology

It is from Italian gorgozza (“throat, gullet”) + -ule, an Old Italian word with a Tuscan suffix.^[5][1][3] The base goes back to Vulgar Latin *gurgutia, which late glosses record with forms such as Late Latin gurgutium “throat”.^[4][5] It is derived from Latin gurges (“whirlpool, abyss”), which in popular Latin also meant “gullet”.^[5][3][6]

DELI takes the shorter route through gorgozza as the easier one.^[3] Devoto saw a more complex cross of a diminutive gorgozzuolo with a Vulgar Latin *gurgulis, from *gurgus, and DELI calls that series of steps open to doubt.^[3][7][8] The Vulgar Latin *gurgutia also survives in French gargousse, and Meyer-Lübke set gozzo “crop, goitre” beside it.^[6]

De Vaan suggests that gurges and Latin gurguliō (“gullet, throat”) may be reduplicated forms of the root of Latin vorō (“to devour”), Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃-, though the morphology is unclear.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Zucchero's Santà, a Florentine text of 1310, where the word means the throat or gullet.^[2] DELI dates gorgozzulo to the 14th-century vernacular Bible and gorgozzule to the vernacular Crescenzi of 1320, which says that cooked garlic “clears the voice and the gorgozzule”.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named the gullet or the throat as a whole.^[2][11] Franco Sacchetti described a man as very tall and thin, con uno smisurato gorgozzule (“with an enormous gullet”), and Pulci has a lance thrust through the neck so that the soul leaves per gorgozzul.^[12][11]

Tommaseo still called it a word of living use in the 19th century.^[12] Today it is rare and mostly humorous, especially in phrases about wetting one's throat with a drink.^[1][13][8]

Timeline

• 1310 – Zucchero's Florentine Santà has the first record.^[2]
• 14th century – Gorgozzulo appears in the vernacular Bible.^[3]
• 1320 – Gorgozzule is used in the vernacular Crescenzi.^[3]
• 16th century – The variant gorgozzuolo is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (humorous) The gullet or oesophagus, and by extension the throat as a whole: Dopo la corsa si versò un bicchiere d'acqua per rinfrescarsi il gorgozzule.^[1][14][13]

Related words

• gorgo
• gozzo
• Latin gurges

References

1. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1848
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
11. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse