grola

Forms

grola f (plural grole)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Venetian grola, the Venetian name of the crow.^[2][3][4] The Venetian form continues Late Latin graula, from graulus, a variant of Latin grāculus (“jackdaw”).^{[1][5][6][7][8]} GRADIT gives the Late Latin source as gracula “crow”.^[2]

The same Latin word gave gracchio and gracchia, French graille, Old Occitan gralha, Catalan gralla, Spanish grajo and Portuguese gralha.^[9][1] GDLI compares French grolle (“crow, rook”), recorded in 1523,^[10] but Meyer-Lübke files the French word under a different etymon.^[9]

The Latin bird name imitates the bird's cry.^[11][12] De Vaan notes that it could match Proto-Slavic *grakati (“to caw”) and Old Norse kráka (“crow”), but holds that in a sound-imitating word such likenesses do not prove an Indo-European origin.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the word to 1909, and GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti to 1951–1952, as a regional name of birds of the crow family.^[7][2][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Grola is a dialect word of the north: Cortelazzo and Marcato record it in Valdostan, Lombard, Venetian and Trentino speech for the crow.^[4] Bacchelli writes Io sono come le ‘grole’ (“I am like the crows”), and goes on to picture them coming out on the soft meadows in autumn.^[10][4]

The modern dictionaries give it as the northern name of several birds of the family, among them the corvo, the cornacchia and the gracchio.^[2][5][7][8]

Timeline

• 1523 – French grolle “crow” is recorded.^[10]
• 1909 – Zingarelli's date for Italian grola.^[7]
• 1951 – The date GRADIT and Devoto–Oli give.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional, northern) A name for several birds of the crow family, especially the cornacchia, the corvo and the gracchio: Sul campo arato si posavano le grole.^[2][5][7][8]

Related words

• gracchio
• gracchia
• Latin graculus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 280
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 7, 56
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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