magliolo

Forms

magliolo m (plural maglioli)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian magliuolo, Old Italian magluolo and Old Italian maiuolo.^[2] Magliuolo remains as a literary form.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mallĕŏlus (“vine cutting; small hammer”), a diminutive of malleus (“hammer”), named for the shape of the cutting, which keeps a short piece of older wood at its base like a small mallet.^[5][6][7][4] The spoken Latin form was Vulgar Latin *malliolus, with /e/ before a vowel turned to /j/.^[8][9] A 17th-century writer, Tedaldi, already explained that the old writers called the cutting malleolo, “little hammer”.^[5]

The same word is Old French maillol, French maillole, Old Occitan malhol and Spanish majuelo;^[10][6] Milanese has manö.^[10][6] De Vaan derives the Latin noun from Proto-Indo-European *molH-lo- (“crushing instrument”), from the root for “to grind”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Florentine document of 1287, for a kind of vine cutting.^[2] In the 14th century Lapo de' Bardi, Domenico Cavalca and Franco Sacchetti use magliuolo;^[5][12] Sacchetti has a man waiting for cuttings of the vernaccia vine of Corniglia.^[5][12]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for a knot in a branch or trunk, from its hammer-like shape.^[2] Cennino Cennini uses magliuolo in its first sense, a small mallet of willow wood.^[12] The form magliolo appears in the 17th century, in G. B. Tedaldi, and Tuscan maj(u)olo is recorded in 1863.^[5] The word is widespread in the dialects, where it also names a club or a bell clapper.^[5][10] Beside it Italian has the learned malleolo.^[8]

Timeline

• 1287 – A Florentine document records magliuolo “vine cutting”.^[2]
• 1300s – Lapo de' Bardi, Cavalca and Sacchetti use magliuolo.^[5]
• 1600s – G. B. Tedaldi uses the form magliolo.^[5]
• 1863 – Tuscan maj(u)olo is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (agriculture) A vine cutting made from the base of a one-year shoot with a short piece of two-year wood left attached, so that it looks like a small mallet.^{[7][13][8][4]}

Related words

• maglio
• malleolo
• Latin malleus

References

1. ^ 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. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier