incudine

Forms

incudine f (plural incudini)^[1] The oldest record has the form Old Italian encudene.^[2] The literary incude continues the classical accusative, and ancudine is archaic or popular.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

DELI and the Zingarelli treat it as a learned word: it is borrowed from Late Latin incūdinem, a Late Latin accusative recorded in the 6th century in Venantius Fortunatus.^[6][7] Classical Latin had incūs (“anvil”), whose accusative survives in the incude of Dante and Petrarch, and the Late Latin form was built on a 4th-century nominative incūdis.^[6] Battisti and Alessio call it semi-learned, and Nocentini and Wiktionary give it as a Vulgar Latin remodelling.^[8][9][1]

Elsewhere in Romance the word is French enclume and Spanish yunque, and it was borrowed into Basque ingude.^[9][8] The dialects of Italy widely have a type ⟨ancùggine⟩, also found in Occitan encluge, with a change of suffix as in testuggine.^[8] The /l/ of the French type comes from the influence of inclūdō (“to shut in”), perhaps from the wooden block in which an anvil is set.^[8]

The Latin noun comes from incūdō (“to forge with a hammer”), formed from in- (“on”) and cūdō (“to beat, strike”).^[6][9][7] De Vaan traces the verb to a root Proto-Indo-European *keuh₂-, the root of Lithuanian káuti (“to strike”), Old High German houwan (“to hew”) and Old Norse hǫggva.^[10][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word from before 1306, in the old form encudene, and DELI gives the same date, in Iacopone, for the anvil, the block of iron or steel on which metal is hammered.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th to the 16th century the shorter incude was in use beside incudine.^[8] In 1561 A. Citolini used the word for the fixed lower part of a power hammer, on which the piece being forged is laid, and in Citolini's Tipocosmia it is also masculine.^[6][11] In anatomy it has named the middle bone of the three in the middle ear since before 1705, when Nomi used it, after scientific Latin incus.^[6][8]

The phrase tra l'incudine e il martello, “between the anvil and the hammer”, is used of a person caught between two equally dangerous or unwelcome choices.^[3][2][4] Tuscan proverbs make the anvil the patient one: when a man is the anvil he must suffer, and when he is the hammer he must strike.^[11]

Timeline

• 6th century – Late Latin incudinem appears in Venantius Fortunatus.^[6]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses the word, in the form encudene.^[6][2]
• 14th–16th century – The short form incude is in use.^[8]
• 1561 – A. Citolini uses incudine for the lower part of a power hammer.^[6]
• Before 1705 – Nomi uses it for the bone of the middle ear.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An anvil: a heavy block of steel with a flat top and two projecting horns, on which a smith hammers hot metal.^[2][3][5]
2. The lower, fixed part of a power hammer, on which the metal to be forged rests.^[2][5][4]
3. (anatomy) The incus, the middle one of the three small bones of the middle ear, between the malleus and the stapes.^[2][3][5]

Word family

• incudinetta

Related words

• incude
• ancudine
• Latin incus

Usage notes

Essere or trovarsi tra l'incudine e il martello means being caught between two dangers.^[3][7][4] A proverb says dura più l'incudine del martello, the oppressed outlast the oppressor.^[4] The diminutive is incudinetta.^[7][4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f 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 d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1998
9. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET