mammella

Forms

mammella f (plural mammelle)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian mamella, Old Italian mamilla, Old Italian mammilla and Old Italian manmella.^[2]

Etymology

DELI and the GDLI call it a learned word, borrowed from Latin mamilla (“nipple, teat”), a diminutive of mamma (“breast”) with the suffix -illa.^[3][4][5] Nocentini instead lists it among the words formed in Latin and continued in Italian, and Meyer-Lübke gives it among the outcomes of the Latin word, beside French mamelle, Occitan mamella, Catalan mamella and Sardinian mamidda.^[6][7] In Spanish, Spanish mamella names the wattle of a goat.^[6][7] Devoto explains the double ⟨mm⟩ by the influence of mamma.^[8]

The Latin base meant both “breast” and “mother”; de Vaan traces it to a nursery word Proto-Indo-European *mama.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bono Giamboni, before 1292, writes of the Amazons that their name means “with one breast” (con una mammella).^[3][4] The TLIO's first record is in the Questioni filosofiche from south-eastern Tuscany, about 1298, with the sense of the milk-producing gland of the female body.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante describes Manto as the woman “who covers her breasts” with her loose hair (Quella che ricuopre le mammelle), and in the Inferno he uses alla destra mammella for “on the right side”, a sense of “side, flank” that the commentators explained as “on the right hand”.^[4][10][2] Petrarch's “since the day I left the breast” (Dal dì che la mammella lasciai) stands for infancy, and Ariosto too uses da le mammelle for “from childhood”.^[10][11] Vincenzo Borghini, before 1580, remarked that where Latin called the breasts nutrices “nurses”, Italian named them more tenderly mammella, as if “little mother”.^[3]

From the shape came the senses “rounded hill” and, in farriery, the two parts of a horse's hoof beside the toe.^[11][12] Mammellonato, of rounded hills or surfaces (1819), copies French mamelonné (1753), from French mamelon (“nipple”), itself from mamelle; in 1940 G. Lupi called mammelloni for “hillocks” a needless gallicism.^[3][6]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses mammella.^[3][4]
• About 1298 – The word appears in the Questioni filosofiche.^[2]
• 1310 – The form mamelle is recorded in Florentine texts.^[3]
• Before 1580 – Vincenzo Borghini comments on mammella as “little mother”.^[3]
• 1819 – Mammellonato is recorded.^[3]
• 1918 – Panzini's dictionary calls mammellonato an ugly gallicism.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) Each of the external milk-producing glands of mammals, developed in the female to suckle the young; an udder or teat of an animal.^{[11][12][13][1]}
2. A woman's breast; the bosom: Il piccolo si addormentò attaccato alla mammella.^[11][12][14]
3. (uncommon) An isolated, rounded hill.^[11][14][15]
4. (zoology) Each of the two parts of a horse's hoof between the toe and the quarters; also each side part of a horseshoe.^[11][12][13]
5. (archaic, literary) Side, flank.^[11][12]
6. (archaic, literary, figurative) Early infancy.^[11][12]
7. (literary, figurative) A source that nourishes the life of the spirit.^[11]

Word family

• mammellone
• mammellonato
• mammellina

Related words

• mamma
• mammillare
• Latin mamilla
• French mamelle

Usage notes

An archaic form is mammilla.^[12][13][15] The phrase togliere dalla mammella means to wean a baby.^[12][13][16]

References

1. ^ a b c 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. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 9, 593
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana