gracchio

gracchio¹ caw, croak

Pronunciation

• /ˈɡrak.kjo/^[1]

Forms

gracchio m (plural gracchi)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a caw is from Italian gracchiare (“to caw”), a deverbal noun.^[2][3][4][1] The verb, recorded before 1348, is itself formed from the name of the bird, homograph 2 below.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates it to before 1449, in Burchiello, for the cry of crows and similar birds.^[2][3] GDLI quotes Burchiello's remedy for a sore throat with tre gracchi di ranocchi (“three croaks of frogs”).^[5]

Semantic evolution

Beside the cry of the crow, the word has always covered other harsh, short animal sounds, above all the croaking of frogs.^[5] Fagiuoli contrasts the harmonious swans with lo strano gracchio of marsh birds.^[5][6] Tommaseo found it uncommon and compared it to raglio, the bray of a donkey.^[6] Ungaretti writes that a crow lancia il suo gracchio (“lets out its caw”), and Calvino lists gracchi di rane among the sounds of a summer of full moons.^[5] Wiktionary also gives the chatter of a magpie.^[1]

Timeline

• Before 1348 – G. Villani uses the verb gracchiare.^[2]
• Before 1449 – Burchiello uses gracchio.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The harsh, hoarse caw of crows, rooks and similar birds: Il gracchio delle cornacchie lo svegliò all'alba.^[3][7][8][9]
2. The croak of a frog.^[5]
3. The chatter of a magpie.^[1]

gracchio² chough

Etymology tree of gracchio²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin grāculus

Italian gracchio

Pronunciation

• /ˈɡrak.kjo/^[1]

Forms

gracchio m (plural gracchi)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the bird is inherited from Latin grāculus (“jackdaw”), which Varro also writes grāgulus.^{[2][10][3][11]} Wiktionary traces it through a syncopated Vulgar Latin *graclus.^[1] The older Tuscan form is graccio, still heard in the dialects of Tuscany and Emilia.^[2] Writers also took the Latin word directly as learned gracculo, as Sannazaro did in his Arcadia (about 1485).^[2]

The masculine continues in Spanish grajo, while French graille, Occitan gralha, Catalan gralla and Portuguese gralha come from the feminine grācula.^[10][12] Italian has the feminine too, gracchia.^[12][1] In Lucca and Pisa gracco was formed from the plural.^[12]

Quintilian and Isidore of Seville already saw in the name an imitation of the bird's cry, a repeated ⟨gra⟩.^[2][5] Nocentini sees an imitative formation already fixed in Proto-Indo-European, citing Slavic and Germanic verbs for the same cry, such as Old High German krājan, modern German krähen.^[10] De Vaan compares Proto-Slavic *grakati (“to caw, croak”) and Old Norse kráka (“crow”), but holds that the plainly imitative root does not prove a common inherited word.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is graccio in M. Tanaglia, before 1512.^[2][3] GDLI quotes him comparing the shades of the dead to grande schiera ... di gracci al freddo tempo (“a great flock of choughs in the cold season”).^[5] The form gracchio appears before 1779, in G. Targioni Tozzetti.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The name has settled on the choughs of the genus Pyrrhocorax, black corvids of the mountains of Europe and Asia, smaller than a crow.^[8][5] The two species are told apart by the bill: gracchio alpino or comune (Alpine chough), with a yellow bill, and gracchio corallino (red-billed chough), with a longer red one.^{[14][7][15][16]} Gracchio bronzato is the North American common grackle.^[7]

Timeline

• About 1485 – Sannazaro uses the learned form gracculo in the Arcadia.^[2]
• Before 1512 – M. Tanaglia uses graccio.^[2][3]
• 1500s – The feminine gracchia and the augmentative gracchione are recorded.^[17]
• Before 1779 – G. Targioni Tozzetti uses gracchio.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) The chough, a black mountain bird of the crow family with red legs and a yellow bill (Pyrrhocorax graculus): gracchio corallino, the red-billed chough.^{[3][14][7][9]}

Word family

• gracchiare