loglio

Forms

loglio m (plural logli)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian logio, Old Italian lolio and Old Italian loio.^[2][3] Tuscan also has gioglio.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lŏlium (“darnel”), a Latin word of unknown origin with a wide popular continuation.^[6][7][8][1] The classical form survives in central and northern Italy and in parts of France and Sardinia; the other Romance languages continue a variant Vulgar Latin *jŏlium, which may be recorded in a Latin glossary: Occitan juelh, Catalan jull, Spanish joyo and Portuguese joio.^[7][4][5][9] French instead uses ivraie, from a Latin word for “drunk”.^[9] The Latin word passed into Old High German lolli, modern German Lolch.^[7][4]

De Vaan finds no etymology for the Latin word, and Devoto knows no reliable Indo-European connections.^[10][11] DEI and the GDLI suggest a Mediterranean word, comparing Basque olo (“oats”).^[4][3] The OLD compares a Sanskrit verb meaning “moves to and fro”, since the plant causes giddiness, and Wiktionary mentions an imitative root Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- for the same reason.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Cremonese poet Ugo di Perso, in the 13th century, for the weed of the grass family that grows among wheat (Lolium temulentum).^[2] DELI dates the plant name to about 1350, in the translation of Crescenzi, and notes that Dante uses it only twice, both times in rhyme.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Crescenzi translation describes the plant: Il loglio, o vero zizzania, nasce tra 'l grano ne' secchi tempi, ed ha virtù acuta e velenosa, ed oppia la mente, e perturbala ed inebbria (“Darnel, or tares, grows among the wheat in dry seasons, and has a sharp and poisonous power, and dulls the mind, and troubles and intoxicates it”).^[3][13]

From early on, loglio set against grano stood for the bad part, evil and discord: seminare loglio was to sow discord, seminare loglio e ricogliere grano to behave badly and be treated well, and vendere loglio per frumento to pass something off as what it is not.^[2] The image comes from the parable of the wheat and the tares in the Gospel of Matthew.^[14][15] In the Paradiso Dante calls the Franciscans who had strayed from the founder's rule il loglio.^[2][15][8] The phrase separare il grano dal loglio, to tell the good from the bad, is still used.^[8][16]

In botany the name covers the whole genus Lolium: the perennial and Italian ryegrasses are good forage, while loglio cattivo or zizzania is the poisonous weed.^[15][3] Derivatives include logliato (1829) and the 19th-century plant names loglierella and logliessa.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – Ugo di Perso of Cremona uses loglio.^[2]
• Before 1294 – The date Zingarelli gives for the first record.^[17]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses loglio twice, in rhyme.^[6]
• c. 1350 – The translation of Crescenzi describes the plant.^[6][3]
• 1829 – Logliato “mixed with darnel” is recorded.^[4]
• 19th century – Loglierella and logliessa name two species.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. darnel (Lolium temulentum), an annual grass that grows as a weed among cereals and makes flour poisonous; zizzania.^{[8][14][17][1]}
2. (botany) Any grass of the genus Lolium, including the ryegrasses grown for forage.^[8][14][15]
3. (figurative) The bad part of a group of people or things, evil, from the Gospel parable, as in separare il grano dal loglio.^{[8][14][16][15]}

Word family

• allogliato
• logliarello
• logliato
• loglierella
• loglierello
• logliessa
• loglietto
• loglioso

Related words

• zizzania
• Latin lolium

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2263
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli