grosso

Forms

grosso (feminine grossa, masculine plural grossi, feminine plural grosse, superlative grossissimo, diminutive grossétto, augmentative grossóne)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grossus (“thick, coarse”), a popular word of Latin, first recorded in the 1st century AD.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Every Romance language has it, and the DÉRom reconstructs Vulgar Latin */ˈɡrɔss-u/ for the oldest layer of Proto-Romance: French gros, Occitan gros, Catalan gros, Spanish grueso, Portuguese grosso, Romanian gros and Friulian grues.^[6][3][7] In written Latin the sense “coarse” is found from Columella and “thick” only later, so the word belonged to the spoken language long before it was written.^[6][1]

Its origin is uncertain.^[1][8] A comparison with Old Irish bres and Cornish bras (“big”), taken up by Nocentini, would lead to a root Proto-Indo-European *gʷres- related to gravis (“heavy”);^[3][9] de Vaan doubts it, since Schrijver reconstructs the Celtic words differently.^[9] Sabatini–Coletti take the Latin adjective for a popular variant of crassus (“thick, fat”), with which it is often compared.^[10][1] Zaccaria thought that Old High German grōz (“big”) had at least helped to spread the word and its sense “pregnant”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and DELI date the word to 1282, to Restoro d'Arezzo's Composizione del mondo, for something of considerable size or capacity.^[4][2] DELI also cites a Florentine chronicle of the 13th century with the figurative sense “coarse, unrefined”, and the Novellino has the pair grande e grosso “big and strong”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

By the 14th century grosso meant thick (Cavalca), dense (Zucchero Bencivenni) and bulky (Giovanni Villani).^[2] As a noun it meant the bulk of something: Dante uses il grosso for the thick part of the body, and the chroniclers il grosso dell'esercito for the main body of an army.^[2][12] The grosso was also a silver coin, recorded in Medieval Latin at Venice in 1290 and in Italian from 1319;^[2][5] DEI notes that the first was the French gros tournois of 1226, but that the name may equally have arisen in Italy.^[2][5]

Derivatives include grossezza (Bono Giamboni), grossolano “coarse” (14th century), ingrosso and grossista “wholesaler” (1869).^[2][3] The Latin school phrase grosso modo “roughly” is recorded in 1656–1657.^[2] DELI notes that the widening use of grosso for “big” in general is recent and due to English big.^[2]

Timeline

• 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo uses grosso.^[2][4]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino has grande e grosso.^[2]
• 1290 – Medieval Latin grossus “a coin” is recorded at Venice.^[2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the noun il grosso.^[2]
• 1319 – Italian grosso is used for the coin.^[2]
• 1656–1657 – Sforza Pallavicino uses grosso modo.^[2]
• 1869 – Tommaseo records grossista as a Tuscan word.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. big, large, bigger than usual: Abbiamo trovato un fungo grosso come un piatto.^{[4][13][14][1]}
2. thick: una corda grossa, sale grosso (coarse salt).^[13][14][1]
3. Heavily built, stout, grande e grosso, big and strong.^[4][14][1]
4. Considerable in amount or importance: un grosso contratto, un grosso imprenditore.^[4][10][15]
5. Serious, hard: una grossa delusione, un grosso pericolo.^[4][10]
6. Of the sea or a river, rough or swollen: mare grosso.^[14][15][1]
7. (popular) Of a woman, pregnant.^[4][14][15]
8. (figurative) Coarse, unrefined.^[10][2]

Noun

1. The bulk, the main part: il grosso della spesa; in cycling, the main bunch of riders.^[10][1]
2. (numismatics) A medieval silver coin, the groat.^[13][10][1]

Word family

• grossezza
• grossolano
• grossolanità
• grossista
• grossomodo
• ingrosso
• ingrossare
• digrossare
• sgrossare
• grossetto

Related words

• grasso
• Latin grossus
• French gros

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include farla grossa “to do something serious”, spararle grosse “to tell tall stories”, pezzo grosso “bigwig”, dormire della grossa “to sleep like a log” and di grosso “badly”, as in sbagliarsi di grosso.^[4][3][15] Dormire della grossa comes from the last and longest sleep of the silkworm.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1876
6. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana