lasco

Forms

lasco (feminine lasca, masculine plural laschi, feminine plural lasche)^[1]

Etymology

It is a deverbal adjective from Italian lascare (“to slacken”), which Devoto–Oli calls a shortened past participle of that verb.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb comes from Late Latin laxicāre, recorded in Oribasius in the 6th century, an iterative of Latin laxāre (“to loosen”).^[2]

Nocentini instead sets up an adjective Vulgar Latin *lascus, derived from *lascāre and so from the Late Latin verb; he gives French lâche and Occitan lasc (“slack, limp”) as the same formation.^[7] Zingarelli and the GDLI derive the adjective directly from the Latin word for “loose”, with the consonants of ⟨x⟩ /ks/ reversed to /sk/.^[8][9] Körting, after Gröber, linked it with a supposed Old High German *lask (compare Old Norse löskr).^[10] De Vaan traces the Latin adjective to Proto-Indo-European *slǵ-so- (“weak, faint”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word to the 14th century, in the sense “loose, slack”.^[3] Old texts quoted by Tommaseo use it for a lazy or cowardly person: a treatise on the deadly sins lists disleale, non calente, dimentico, lasco (“disloyal, careless, forgetful, slack”).^[12]

Semantic evolution

DELI records the general sense “slack” before 1508 in De Jennaro, and “loosened” in 1584 in Leonardo Fioravanti, who warns that cloth must be woven neither too thick nor too lasca.^[2][9] In 1889 Guglielmotti's naval dictionary gives the nautical sense, a rope or sheet that is not taut, and the mechanical one, a joint with play between its parts.^[2][9]

The noun followed: in sailing, al lasco and di gran lasco describe a boat sailing with the wind from abaft the beam, recorded in 1937, and Bacchelli uses lasco for this way of sailing in 1956.^[2] DEI dates a noun meaning “space” to 1787, in Lastri.^[13] A Tuscan noun lasco names ground left by small streams in woods, or open ground with shrubs;^[9][6] D'Annunzio writes that tutti i laschi biancicavano di brina (“all the clearings were white with frost”).^[9][6] In statistics a media lasca is an average that does not depend on every value of a series.^[4][6]

Timeline

• 1300s – Lasco “loose, slack” is first recorded.^[3]
• Before 1508 – De Jennaro uses it in the general sense “slack”.^[2]
• 1584 – Leonardo Fioravanti applies it to loosely woven cloth.^[2][9]
• 1787 – Lastri uses the noun for “space”.^[13]
• 1889 – Guglielmotti records the nautical and mechanical senses.^[2]
• 1937 – A nautical dictionary records navigare al lasco and di gran lasco.^[2]
• 1956 – Bacchelli uses the noun for this point of sail.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (nautical) Of a rope, sheet or shroud: not taut, slack.^{[3][4][8][14]}
2. (mechanics) Of a joint or mechanism: having play, not fitting closely.^[3][8][14]
3. (uncommon) Loose, wide; of cloth, loosely woven.^[3][5][14]
4. (figurative, literary) Relaxed; sluggish, lazy.^[3][4][8]
5. (statistics) media lasca: an average whose value does not depend on all the values of the series.^[4][6]

Noun

1. (nautical) The slack of a rope.^[3][6]
2. (nautical) A point of sail with the wind between abeam and astern, a broad reach: navigare al lasco;^[3][4][5][8] gran lasco, with the wind nearly astern.^[3][4][5][8]
3. (mechanics) Play, the clearance between two parts of a mechanism.^{[3][5][6][14]}
4. (literary, dated) Open ground covered with grass or shrubs.^[3][5][8][9]

Related words

• lascare
• lasciare
• Latin laxus

Usage notes

DEI lists the old adjective “slack, cowardly” and the 19th-century nautical and mechanical noun separately, deriving the noun from the adjective.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f 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 Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c d e f g Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2172
14. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli