greco

Forms

greco (feminine greca, masculine plural greci, feminine plural greche)^[1] Old and dialect forms include grecco, grego and griego.^[2] The masculine plural was once also grechi, still used of wines and winds.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Graecus (“Greek”).^[6][7][8][1] The Latin word is an early borrowing, from Ancient Greek Γραικός (Graikós).^[6][1][9] Nocentini lists the word as pan-Romance: Old French grieu, Old Occitan grieu, Spanish griego, Portuguese grego and Romanian grec, while French grec is a learned form.^[7][10] DEI and the GDLI instead call the Italian word learned.^[11][2]

DELI notes that Latin took a popular form, perhaps from Illyria rather than from Greece itself, where the name is rare and late beside the usual name of the Hellenes.^[6] Nocentini explains it as the name of an Aeolian people from Tanagra who were the first to colonise the western Mediterranean; the name then spread to all Greek-speaking peoples.^[7] The Italian Wiktionary places it instead in Epirus, around Dodona.^[12] Following M. Fruyt, DELI separates the usual ethnic name, the plural of this word, perhaps a Greek name with an Italic suffix, from the poetic Grāiī, used mostly of the famous Greeks of the past.^[6]

Several Latin derivatives survive as learned words: Graecālis in grecale, Graecanicus in grecanico, graecitas in grecità and graecizāre in grecizzare.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is a 13th-century chronicle, under the year 1240, with the sense “of Greece”.^[6] Zingarelli dates the word to about 1261.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the 14th century greco also named the Greek language.^[11] The adjective came to mean “cunning, sly”, after the Greeks' skill in trade, and fede greca, “Greek faith”, is bad faith, after the trick of the Trojan horse.^[11][13] Parlare greco is to speak unintelligibly.^[3]

Used as a noun, greco named wine made from grapes of Greek origin: vino greco is in a Tuscan document of 1276, and the noun alone in Cecco Angiolieri (before 1313) and at Pisa in 1323.^[6] The Crusca explained that the wine is called Greek, though made in Italy, because it grows mostly where the Greeks once lived.^[6] The name now covers vines of southern Italy and their white wines, such as greco di Tufo.^[8][3]

Greco is also the north-east wind, before the derivative grecale (1582–1584).^[6] DELI follows H. and R. Kahane in explaining it as the wind from Greece, but DEI objects that the name is found from Genoa and Venice to France and Catalonia, always for the north-east wind, so that “from Greece” would fit only southern Italy.^[6][14] In old texts greco also meant “pride”, which F. Ageno linked with the reputation of the Greeks and DELI with the violence of the wind.^[6] The Latin school grammar Graecismus gave grecismo its first sense, “Latin grammar”, in Alberti (1437–1438).^[6]

In Apulia the variant grico names the modern Greek dialects of the Salento and Calabria.^[7] English borrowed Greco for the wind (1555) and the wine (1644), and German used Greco for the north-east wind from about 1440.^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – A chronicle uses the word under the year 1240.^[6]
• c. 1261 – Zingarelli's date for the word.^[3]
• 1276 – Vino greco appears in a Tuscan document.^[6]
• Before 1313 – Cecco Angiolieri uses greco alone for the wine.^[6][15]
• 14th century – Greco names the Greek language and the north-east wind.^[11][14]
• 1437–1438 – Alberti uses grecismo for Latin grammar.^[6]
• 1555 – English Greco “north-east wind” is recorded.^[15]
• 1582–1584 – The derivative grecale is first recorded.^[6]
• 1644 – English Greco “Greek wine” is recorded.^[15]
• 1869 – Greca, the Greek-key ornament, is recorded by Tommaseo–Bellini.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Greek: of ancient or modern Greece, its people, language or culture: Abbiamo passato l'estate su un'isola greca.^[8][16][4]
2. Like the ideal of Greek statues, in set phrases: naso greco, a straight nose in line with the forehead;^[16][3][4] profilo greco.^[16][3][4]

Noun

1. A Greek: a native or inhabitant of Greece, ancient or modern.^[8][16][17]
2. The Greek language, ancient or modern: greco antico, greco moderno.^[8][16][4]
3. (figurative) Unintelligible talk, in parlare greco.^[3][16]
4. (meteorology) The north-east wind, the grecale; also the direction it blows from.^[8][4][17]
5. (viticulture) A white-grape vine grown in southern Italy, and the white wine made from it.^[8][3][4]

Word family

• greca
• grecale
• grecanico
• grecismo
• grecista
• grecità
• grecizzare
• grico
• grecamente
• grecastro
• grecheggiare
• grecheria
• grechesco
• grechetto

Related words

• Grecia
• Latin Graecus

Usage notes

Alle calende greche means “never”: the Greek calendar had no calends.^[13] Other fixed phrases are croce greca, a cross with equal arms, fuoco greco and pece greca.^[13][3][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 7, 27
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 528
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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 e 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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1867
12. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
13. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1868
15. ^ a b c d Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
16. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse