madia

Forms

madia f (plural madie)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin măgida (“large dish”), a borrowing of Ancient Greek μαγίδα (magída), the accusative of μαγίς (magís, “kneaded food, bread; kneading trough”), from the root of μάσσω (mássō, “to knead”).^[2][3][4][1] Varro uses the Latin word for a large serving dish; in the 4th–5th century Marcellus Empiricus speaks of dough sticking in the kneading trough.^[2][5] DELI holds that the Greek word came in from Magna Graecia, where a place called ⟨Magida⟩ is recorded from 1188.^[2]

The Italian form goes back to an earlier Old Italian maida, which is attested in Old Pisan and survives in Sardinian maida and Basque maida.^[2][3] The /g/ was lost before the front vowel, and the /i/ then moved by metathesis.^[6][3] Wiktionary sets up a spoken Latin *madi(g)a.^[1] In the south the word was replaced by a diminutive *magidula, which gave Sicilian majiḍḍa.^[5][1] Outside Italy it gave Old French maie and Portuguese malga.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in 1221, as maida, in the inventory of the goods of one Orlando; the TLIO's first record is a Sienese document of the same year.^[2][9] The form madia appears at the end of the 13th century in the Novellino, where a woman puts an eel pie ne la madia.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the wooden kitchen chest on feet in which bread was kneaded and food kept, and also a measure of grain, as much as a madia holds.^[9] The madia became a symbol of domestic and peasant life, and the word also came to mean any cupboard.^[10] Agnolo Firenzuola has the saying that a madia gets as dirty making ten loaves as making a hundred.^[11]

Idioms of plenty and want grew around it: avere la madia piena “to have plenty”, avere il gatto nella madia “to be poor”, and essere fatto nella stessa madia “to be made in the same trough”, to be much alike.^[12][13] Similar chests and benches took the name: the box into which tar drips off ropes in the shipyard, the cheese-maker's trough, and the goldsmith's bench, which Cellini mentions.^[12][14] In 1792 the name passed, from the shape of its shell, to an edible bivalve.^[14][4] Today the old madia is often kept as a decorative piece of furniture.^[12]

Timeline

• 1188 – Magida is recorded as a place name in Calabria.^[2][5]
• 1221 – Maida is recorded in the inventory of Orlando's goods.^[2]
• Late 13th century – Madia appears in the Novellino.^[2]
• 14th century – Old Pisan maida is recorded.^[2]
• 16th century – The diminutive madiella is recorded.^[5]
• 1792 – Madia is used for a bivalve mollusc.^[14][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kneading trough: a rustic wooden chest with a hinged lid, used in country houses to knead bread and keep flour, yeast and other food.^{[14][13][15][12]}
2. (by extension) A cupboard or sideboard; a dresser.^[14][13][15]
3. (nautical) A perforated box into which surplus tar drips when ropes are tarred.^[14][12]
4. (dated) A goldsmith's workbench.^[14][13]
5. (zoology) An edible bivalve mollusc of the genus Mactra, living buried in the sand of beaches.^[13][4][14]

Word family

• madiata
• madiella
• madiaio
• radimadia

Related words

• mattra
• Latin magida
• Ancient Greek μαγίς (magís)

Usage notes

The botanical madia, a plant of the daisy family with sticky, foul-smelling leaves whose seeds yield an oil, has a separate source: it is scientific Latin Madia, from Spanish madia or madi, a word of Chile of Araucanian origin, recorded in Italian before 1827.^[14][12][5] DiPI gives /ˈmadja/, with /maˈdia/ as a variant.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2306
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ Canepari, Luciano, DiPI: Dizionario di pronuncia italiana, online ed., dipionline.it