lattuga

Forms

lattuga f (plural lattughe, diminutive lattughìna, augmentative lattugóna or lattugóne m, pejorative lattugàccia)^[1] Old forms include lattuca, latuga, lactuca and northern laituga.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Italian lattuca, inherited from Latin lactūca (“lettuce”), from lac (“milk”), after the milky juice of the plant.^[4][5][6][1] The Latin word adds to the noun the ending of plant names such as ērūca;^[7][1][8] Devoto derives it instead from a verb “to ooze milk”, like cadūcus from cadō.^[7][1][8] Popular belief held that the plant helped the flow of milk.^[5]

The /g/ for Latin /k/ is a northern voicing, and DEI calls the word one of northern origin.^[8][9] It is pan-Romance: French laitue, Occitan lachuga, Catalan lletuga, Spanish lechuga, Sardinian lattucca and Romanian lăptucă.^[5][10] The Latin word also passed into Old High German latohha (now German Lattich), and English lettuce comes from the Old French plural laitues.^[9][5]

De Vaan traces the Latin word for milk to Proto-Indo-European *glg-t- (“milk”), with the first /g/ lost by dissimilation.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the TLIO is in Bonvesin de la Riva's Milanese De Cruce, of the 1270s, for the common garden vegetable with broad green leaves.^[2][5] DELI's first dated form is latuga in 1310, and lattuga is in Matteo Villani, before 1363.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already named wild kinds, lattuga salvatica or silvestre for endive, and lattuga caprina for spurge.^[2]

From the 16th century lattuga also meant a pleated frill of linen or lace on the front and cuffs of a man's shirt, from its likeness to the leaves (an inventory of Lucrezia Borgia has latuga in 1516); DELI suggests, from the dates, that this sense comes from the Spanish lechuga, and Sabatini–Coletti and GDLI agree.^[4][12][3] The green seaweed Ulva lactuca is lattuga di mare or lattuga marina from 1768–1779, in Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti.^[4][13]

Timeline

• 1270s – Bonvesin de la Riva has the word in De Cruce.^[2]
• 1310 – The form latuga is recorded.^[4][6]
• Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses lattuga.^[4]
• 1516 – Latuga for a shirt frill appears in an inventory of Lucrezia Borgia.^[4]
• Before 1590 – Saint Catherine de' Ricci uses lattuga for the frill.^[4]
• 1768–1779 – Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti names the seaweed lattuga di mare.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. lettuce: a common garden vegetable with broad green leaves, eaten in salads (Lactuca sativa); kinds include lattuga romana and lattuga cappuccina.^[6][13][14]
2. (botany) Any plant of the genus Lactuca of the daisy family.^[6][12][15]
3. (historical) A frill of pleated or crimped linen or lace on the collar and cuffs of a man's shirt, worn especially in the 15th and 16th centuries.^[6][13][12]

Word family

• lattugaccia
• lattugaccio
• lattughella
• lattughetta
• lattughina
• lattughino
• lattugone

Related words

• latte
• Latin lactuca
• English lettuce

Usage notes

Lattuga di mare or lattuga marina is the green seaweed Ulva lactuca, named for its leaf-like fronds.^[13][14][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b 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 d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2182
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d 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 Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)