graticcio

Forms

graticcio m (plural graticci)^[1] An older form is Old Italian craticcio.^[2][3][4][1] The GDLI also records old and dialect forms Old Italian graticchio and Old Italian gradizzo.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin crāticius (“made of wattle”), an adjective used as a noun.^[6][7][8][1] The Latin adjective is formed from crātis (“wickerwork, hurdle”) with the suffix -īcius.^[9][1] Nocentini classes the noun as a Romance formation of Latin origin.^[7] DEI counts it a word of northern and southern Italy, recorded in a 13th-century Latin document from Cicolano as Medieval Latin gratizus, with a few continuations in Occitan and Franco-Provençal.^[10]

Meyer-Lübke lists beside it Bellunese gardiz, and as derivatives Venetian and Triestine griziola (“fish trap”) and Friulian grizole (“reed mat”), whose ⟨z⟩ he found odd.^[11] The voiced initial /ɡ/ for Latin /k/ is explained by the GDLI as a softening of the initial consonant,^[5] and by Devoto as a crossing with grata.^[12]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *krāti- (“wickerwork”), and de Vaan compares Old High German hurd (“hurdle”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Bono Giamboni's Florentine translation of Vegetius, from before 1292.^[14] Its first sense is a frame of interwoven withies or wood used for many purposes, and in military writing a screen used in fortifications and for makeshift bridges.^[14] DELI's earliest example is Jacopone da Todi (before 1306), who uses it for a mat at the foot of a bed.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named mats for drying, smoking and storing farm produce, covers over pits, a strainer for wine, a trap for animals and perhaps a frame for cleaning raw wool; figuratively an uncomfortable bed likened to the gridiron of a martyr.^[14] DELI dates the general sense of a structure of interwoven canes or withies that protects, closes or supports to about 1340 (the vernacular Palladius) and Giovanni Villani, and the mat for drying fruit or rearing silkworms to about 1350 (the vernacular Crescenzi).^[6] Villani tells of an army that crossed safely on ponti di graticci, bridges of wattles.^[15]

The GDLI adds its use for maturing cheese, drying fruit and drying clay ware, and quotes Lorenzo de' Medici's praise of Nencia: Ella fa molti graticci e canestre (“she makes many wattles and baskets”).^[5] In modern use the word also names a portable hedge used as a jump in horse racing and, in building, a timber framework for light walls, a technique the Romans knew as opus craticium and one typical of northern European vernacular architecture from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.^[8][4]

Derivatives followed later: graticciato as an adjective in Alessandro Tassoni (1617), graticciata, a row of wattles, in Filippo Baldinucci (1681), and the verb graticciare in 1834.^[6][7]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni's translation of Vegetius has the first recorded graticcio.^[14]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses it for a mat at the foot of a bed.^[6]
• c. 1340 – The vernacular Palladius uses it for a structure of canes or withies that protects or supports.^[6]
• c. 1350 – The vernacular Crescenzi uses it for a mat for drying fruit or rearing silkworms.^[6]
• 1617 – Graticciato appears as an adjective in Alessandro Tassoni.^[6]
• 1681 – Filippo Baldinucci records graticciata.^[6]
• 1834 – The verb graticciare is first recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wicker mat on which fruit and the like are laid to dry.^[8][4][16]
2. Any structure of interwoven canes, withies or wooden slats used to close, shelter or support something; a trellis or wattle screen.^{[8][16][2][1]}
3. (sericulture) A cane mat or wooden frame on which silkworms and their mulberry leaves are spread.^[4][3]
4. (military) A wattle of branches woven round stakes, used to line ditches and trenches.^[4][3]
5. (horse racing) A portable hedge of woven dry branches used as an obstacle; a hurdle.^[8][16][4]
6. (building) A framework of timber beams that carries a light masonry wall; half-timbering.^[8][4][16]

Word family

• graticciata
• graticciato
• graticciare
• ingraticciare
• aggraticciare
• graticcia

Related words

• grata
• graticola
• Latin crātis

Usage notes

Muro a graticcio is a brick wall laid with regular gaps that form a geometric pattern, used for fences and partitions.^[8][4][16] GRADIT refers its senses “reed mat” and “wattle-and-daub building” to canniccio and opus craticium.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1863
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier