luglio

Forms

luglio m (uncountable)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian lulio, Old Italian luio, Old Italian lugio, Old Italian iulio and Old Italian giullio.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Iūlius (“(month) of Julius”), short for a phrase with the word for “month” understood, the month named in honour of Julius Caesar.^[4][5][6][1] In the Roman calendar that began in spring it had been called Latin Quīntīlis, the fifth month; the new name replaced it in 44 BC, as Sextīlis was later renamed after Augustus.^[5][7] Zingarelli asks whether the family name is connected with Iovis (“Jupiter”), and Wiktionary gives that and a derivation from Ancient Greek ἴουλος (íoulos, “first down of the beard”) as possible origins.^[8][1]

The initial ⟨l-⟩ is unexpected, and the sources explain it in several ways.^[4][5][9][3] DELI, following Babad (1895), sees a change of the initial /j/ to /l/ by assimilation, not a trace of the article.^[4] Nocentini and Devoto likewise put it down to assimilation to the /l/ inside the word, Devoto with Vulgar Latin *luljus.^[5][10] Körting thought instead of the article grown onto the word.^[9] Rohlfs, quoted by the GDLI, took the Tuscan form for a hypercorrect remaking of an earlier giuglio, on the model of educated loglio and tiglio beside popular gioglio and giglio.^[3] Wiktionary allows also a Vulgar Latin *lūlius behind the Italo-Romance forms, such as Corsican lugliu, Sicilian lugghiu, Venetian lujo, Ligurian lûggio, Ladin lugio and Romansh lügl.^[1] Meyer-Lübke explains Piedmontese lün by distant dissimilation.^[11]

The same Latin word gave Old French juil, whose derivative is modern French juillet, and Occitan julh, Catalan juliol and Portuguese julho;^[5][11] Spanish julio is a learned form.^[5][11] The personal name Giulio is a doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1211, the book of a firm of bankers, which dates a payment to the eleventh day before the end of July (dies undici usciente lulio).^[2][4][3] The sense is the month itself, which the TLIO defines as the first month after the summer solstice, the seventh in the calendars that began the year at Christmas or on 1 January.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian spelled the word in many ways, among them lulio, luio, iulio and giullio, and the older dictionaries still list lùio and lùlio beside luglio.^[2][3] In the Inferno Dante names the time tra ’l luglio e ’l settembre (between July and September), the season of fevers in the marshes of the Valdichiana.^[3][12]

Because it is one of the hottest months, the word entered proverbs: vendere il sol di luglio is to pass off as rare or precious something everyone has in plenty, and farsi bello (or farsi onore) col sol di luglio is to boast of something one has no merit in.^[6][13][12] Historians speak of the monarchia di luglio, the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe that followed the Paris revolution of July 1830.^[6][13]

Fruits that ripen in July took their names from the month: lugliatico is recorded about 1350, and luglienga, an early white table grape, at the turn of the 20th century, after the older lugliese and lugliola.^[4][5] Somali borrowed the word as luuliyo.^[1]

Timeline

• 1211 – A Florentine bankers' book has lulio.^[4][2][3]
• c. 1350 – Lugliatico, of fruit that ripens in July, appears in the translation of Crescenzi.^[4]
• 1898–1903 – Luglienga is recorded for an early table grape.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. July, the seventh month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, of 31 days: Ci sposiamo a luglio.^{[6][14][7][1]}

Word family

• lugliatico
• luglienga
• lugliolo

Related words

• Giulio
• Latin Iūlius

Usage notes

Luglio is mostly used in the singular and without an article for the month in general (a luglio, in luglio); a plural lugli exists but is rare.^[14][7][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 f g 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 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 f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier