lizza

lizza¹ lists, palisade

Forms

lizza f (plural lizze)^[1] Old Italian also had liccia and leccia, and Pisan and Pistoian lissa.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

The word for the lists is borrowed from Old French lice, the source also of modern French lice.^{[5][6][7][8][1]} The French word is probably Germanic: DELI and Nocentini take it from Frankish *listja (“barrier”), a derivative of *lista (“board”), the source of Italian lista.^[5][6][9] Meyer-Lübke derived the Italian word from Old Occitan lisa and noted that Spanish liza and Portuguese liça came the same way.^[10] Nocentini takes the Spanish word from French too.^[6]

Older proposals were Diez's Middle High German letze (“obstacle”), which Zaccaria rejected because of its vowel, and Salvioni's Vulgar Latin *litea from Latin līs (“lawsuit”), which Meyer-Lübke found unsatisfying.^[11][10] The phrase entrare in lizza copies French entrer en lice.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO first finds the word in Armannino's Fiorita (1325) for a defensive barrier of stakes or planks around a camp or a fortified town.^[3] DELI's first date for this sense is Andrea da Barberino, before 1431.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the palisade the word passed to the enclosure for jousts and tourneys, recorded in Ariosto's Orlando furioso (1516).^[5] The Crusca of 1612 explains the change: the word then named the boarding or cloth along which knights ran at a joust.^[5] By extension it named any field of combat (1582), and figuratively a struggle or contest, already in Pucci before 1388.^[5][7] In the TLIO's love lyrics it is the power to resist the beloved's beauty.^[3]

Only the figurative use is alive today, in essere in lizza, entrare or scendere in lizza: to compete, to join a dispute.^[13][8][7]

Timeline

• 1325 – Armannino uses the word for a palisade.^[3]
• Before 1388 – Pucci uses it for “contest”.^[5][7]
• Before 1431 – Andrea da Barberino uses lizza “palisade”.^[5]
• 1516 – Ariosto uses it for the jousting ground.^[5]
• 1530 – A Florentine challenge writes leccia for the lists.^[5]
• 1582 – Gonzaga uses it for a battlefield.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) The lists: the fenced ground where jousts and tournaments were held.^[7][8][9]
2. (literary) A field of combat or of a duel.^[7][14]
3. (figurative) A contest, competition: in lizza, competing: Tre squadre sono ancora in lizza per lo scudetto.^[7][13]
4. (historical) A palisade around a fortified place.^[7][9][14]

lizza² marble sledge

Forms

lizza f (plural lizze)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the marble sledge is, probably, inherited from Late Latin helcia (“towing rope”), through a northern dialect form ⟨l'ilza⟩ in which the article fused with the noun.^{[7][14][6][4]} The Latin word, recorded in the Tironian notes, comes from Ancient Greek ἕλκω (hélkō, “to pull, to drag”).^[5][6][2] DEI compares alzaia “towrope” and gives Venetian liza and lisa as the Venetian forms.^[2] Sabatini–Coletti and Treccani call the origin uncertain, Sabatini–Coletti suggesting the Late Latin word with a Gaulish origin.^[9][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form lilza in 1478.^[7][6] DEI dates the Venetian sense, a machine for carrying boats from the freshwater canal into the lagoon, to the 14th or 15th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Venice the word named a contrivance for hauling boats over the dyke between the canals and the lagoon, and Sanudo uses lissa for a sledge drawn by a horse.^[2][4] Oudin's dictionary of 1640 has lissa for a sledge and, in slang, for a ship.^[5]

The sense now best known comes from the marble quarries of the Apuan Alps: a sledge of two bound beams on which blocks slide down to the valley over greased timbers, as D'Annunzio described it in his notebooks in 1899.^[5][9] Carrara dialect has liza.^[5] The track itself is also called lizza.^[7][4]

Timeline

• 1478 – Lilza is recorded.^[7]
• Before 1536 – The sledge is recorded.^[14]
• 1640 – Oudin lists lissa “sledge”.^[5]
• 1899 – D'Annunzio describes the marble sledges.^[5]
• 1905 – Pascoli mentions the lizza for marble blocks.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wooden sledge used in stone quarries to bring the cut blocks down to the valley.^[7][8][9]
2. The steep track down which the blocks are slid.^[7][4]
3. In the Venetian lagoon, a slipway for hauling boats over the dykes.^[7][4]

Word family

• lizzare
• lizzatura