grasso

Forms

grasso (feminine grassa, masculine plural grassi, feminine plural grasse)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian graso, Old Italian grassu and Old Italian grass.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin grassus (“fat”), a form of Latin crassus (“thick, fat”) with its initial changed under the influence of grossus (“thick, coarse”).^[3][4][5][6] The form with /g/ is found in Late Latin glosses and in a veterinary treatise, the Mulomedicina Chironis.^[7][8][9] The sense “fat” is found sporadically in Latin from Plautus, and by the end of the 3rd century the adjective had replaced pinguis (“fat”).^[7][6]

The same word is French gras, Occitan gras, Catalan gras, Spanish graso, Portuguese graxo, Sardinian rassu and Romanian gras.^[4][10] DÉRom reconstructs the Proto-Romance ancestor as Vulgar Latin *grassus, with the senses “fatty” and “fertile”, as a blend of the Latin forms with /k/ and /g/.^[11] The learned doublet is crasso.^[4][1]

The origin of the Latin adjective is unknown.^[12][1] The old derivation from a root Proto-Indo-European *kert- (“to wind”) and the comparison with Latin crātis (“wickerwork”) are rejected by de Vaan, who notes that it belongs with other adjectives for body shapes that have a double consonant, such as grossus and flaccus (“flabby”).^[12] Nocentini mentions a possible link with crēscō (“to grow”) and an Oscan verb meaning “they feed”, so that the word would have meant “well fed”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia quae dicuntur super natura feminarum of the last quarter of the 12th century.^[2] The TLIO's senses start from the body of a person or animal, “with plenty of fatty tissue, well fed”, and the noun names the fatty tissue itself.^[2] DELI dates the sense “rich, opulent” to Bono Giamboni before 1292, in Bologna la grassa, and the noun “fat” to 1310.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the adjective was already used of meat, of fleshy fruit, of greasy hair, of rich soil and of prosperous cities.^[2] In Florence the popolo grasso were the wealthy members of the major guilds.^[13][14][2] Dante writes of how lo grasso e 'l magro are divided in a body.^[6][9] A Tuscan proverb, grasso ventre, grosso ingegno, links a fat belly with a dull mind.^[9]

The sense “rich, abundant” lives on in annata grassa, a year of good harvests, and giovedì grasso and martedì grasso are the last Thursday and Tuesday of Carnival, before the meatless days of Lent.^[15][13][14] The figurative sense “coarse, lewd”, of talk and jokes, is found in Salvator Rosa before 1650, with parole grasse in 1798.^[3] In chemistry the noun has named esters of fatty acids with glycerol since 1933.^[3]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Grasso appears in the Venetian Proverbia quae dicuntur super natura feminarum.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni writes of Bologna la grassa.^[3]
• 1310 – The noun “fatty tissue” is recorded.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it of fat people.^[3]
• 1473 – Grassoccio “plump” is recorded in Lorenzo de' Medici.^[3]
• Before 1650 – Salvator Rosa uses it for “lewd, coarse”.^[3]
• 1905 – Grassetto “bold type” is recorded.^[3]
• 1933 – The chemical sense of the noun is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. fat, having a lot of body fat: un gatto grasso.^[5][15][16]
2. Containing fat, fatty: carne grassa, formaggi grassi.^[5][15][16]
3. Of soil, fertile, rich.^[5][15]
4. (figurative) Abundant, plentiful; profitable; of a person, wealthy: un affare grasso, un'annata grassa.^[5][15][14]
5. Thick and sticky; of air, heavy and dense.^[5][16]
6. greasy, oily: pelle grassa, capelli grassi.^[5][16][14]
7. (figurative) Coarse, lewd, of talk or jokes; of laughter, loud and unrestrained.^[5][16]
8. (botany) Piante grasse: succulent plants.^[15][13][14]

Noun

1. Fat, the fatty tissue of people and animals: Togli il grasso dalla bistecca.^[16][15][1]
2. A fat person.^[5][16]
3. A greasy substance, such as a lubricant: una macchia di grasso sui pantaloni.^[16][1]

Word family

• ingrassare
• sgrassare
• digrassare
• grassetto
• grassezza
• grassoccio
• grassone
• grassume
• grassello
• grassaggio

Related words

• crasso
• grosso
• Latin crassus

Usage notes

A farla grassa means “at best, at most”.^[15][14] Grasso come un porco is a common simile, and Tuscan also had grasso come un tordo.^[15][14][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 i j k 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 d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1863
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 209
9. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse