grigio

Forms

grigio (feminine grigia, masculine plural grigi, feminine plural grigie or (proscribed) grige)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian griso, Old Italian grisio, Old Italian grixo and Old Italian gris.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French gris according to Nocentini, GRADIT and the TLIO.^[3][4][2] Zingarelli and Gabrielli take it from Old Occitan gris instead.^[5][6] The Gallo-Romance word comes from Frankish *grīs, a Germanic word for “grey”.^[3][1][7] It is cognate with Dutch grijs, Old High German grīs (“grey”) and German greis (“aged”).^[3][1] From French and Occitan it also passed into Spanish gris and Portuguese gris, and it is Catalan gris too.^[3][7][8]

DELI sees two routes into Italy.^[9] An adjective Medieval Latin griseus was made from the Germanic word, on the model of Latin rŭbeus or directly from a Germanic derivative, and came through Lombardic: it is glossed at Monte Cassino in 874, recorded at Verona in 1146 (⟨mantello grisio⟩), and survives in the personal name Griso.^[9][8] The form gris came from French, which cannot explain the early Medieval Latin records.^[9] Zaccaria also derived the Italian word from the Medieval Latin one.^[10]

Giacalone Ramat, quoted by DELI, thought that the fur trade carried the word into the Romance languages.^[9] F. Möhren also put first the sense “colour of the fur of the squirrel (vair)”, and revived Nicholson's idea that the word comes from Ancient Greek χρύσεος (chrýseos, “golden”).^[9] Meyer-Lübke thought that French bis, the source of bigio, may be a reshaping of the same word.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Proverbia que dicuntur, a Venetian poem of the last quarter of the 12th century, in the sense “of a colour between white and black”.^[2] DELI's first date is 1292, in Bono Giamboni, and Zingarelli's 1287.^[9][5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the adjective for monks who wore a grey habit, and as a noun for a coarse grey cloth and for the grey squirrel fur used to line rich garments, often paired with vaio.^[2] In Milanese the word still had the Old French sense “vair”.^[8] Dante writes “Al piè delle maligne piagge grige” (at the foot of the evil grey slopes).^[11] A figurative sense “ambiguous, hypocritical” is also found in Old Italian.^[2]

Francesco Alunno, before 1556, glossed it “Grigio val buio et oscuro” (grigio means dark and obscure).^[9] The noun for the colour is recorded in 1657 in Daniello Bartoli, and the figurative “uniform, dull, monotonous” in 1876 in Carducci.^[9] The anatomical materia grigia is named after the colour of the nerve cell bodies.^[9]

Grigiastro (1772) adapts French grisâtre, and grigioverde, recorded in 1897 by Nocentini, named the field uniform of the Italian army in the First World War.^[9][3]

Timeline

• 874 – Medieval Latin griseus is glossed at Monte Cassino.^[9]
• 1146 – A mantello grisio is recorded at Verona.^[9]
• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur use the word.^[2]
• 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses grigio.^[9]
• 1536 – Aretino uses grigio for a grey woollen cloth.^[9]
• 1657 – Daniello Bartoli uses grigio as a noun for the colour.^[9]
• 1772 – Grigiastro appears in a translation from French.^[9]
• 1876 – Carducci uses grigia for “monotonous”.^[9]
• 1917 – Grigioverde names the army uniform.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. grey: of a colour between white and black, like ash.^{[4][12][13][5]}
2. Of hair or a beard, turning grey, grizzled, or of a person, going grey.^[4][12][14]
3. Of the sky or the weather, overcast, dull.^[4][12][5]
4. (figurative) Dull, monotonous, or of a person, lacking personality: un grigio funzionario di ministero.^[4][13][5]
5. (figurative) Sad, gloomy: Oggi mi sento grigio e stanco..^[4][5]
6. (figurative) Uncertain, ambiguous: zona grigia is a grey area.^[12][5][14]
7. Of a horse's coat, of mixed white and black or dark red hairs.^[4][12][14]
8. (anatomy) materia grigia or sostanza grigia: grey matter, and figuratively intelligence.^[12][5][14]
9. letteratura grigia: grey literature, reports and papers not published commercially.^[4][14]

Noun

1. The colour grey, often with a word for the shade: grigio perla, grigio ferro.^[4][5][13]
2. Grey cloth or clothing: una signora sempre vestita di grigio.^[14]
3. A grey horse.^[4][5]
4. (football) A player or supporter of Alessandria.^[4]

Word family

• grigiastro
• grigiore
• grigioverde
• grigiamente
• ingrigiare
• grigiolato

Related words

• bigio
• French gris

Usage notes

The feminine plural is grigie or grige.^[5][13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1871
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana