mannaia

Forms

mannaia f (plural mannaie)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian manara, Old Italian manaia, Old Italian mannara and Old Italian magnara.^[2] The regional forms mannara, manara and manera are still in use.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin manuāria (“hand (axe)”), short for a phrase with secūris (“axe”), an axe that is held in the hand and easy to handle.^[5][6][1] The adjective is Latin manuārius (“of the hand”), from manus (“hand”) with the suffix -ārius; the noun took on the sense of the axe itself by metonymy.^[6][7][1]

From the same adjective come Romansh manera (“hand axe”) and, by way of French and Occitan, maniera.^[8][6] The word Catalan manaia may have been borrowed from Italian.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI notes maestro di mannaia in the Pisan naval account of the 11th–12th century, and the TLIO dates its first record to a Pisan document of the first half of the 12th century.^[5][2] The first literary record is in Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294, where the axe is the headsman's: “Aprestata è corona e mannaia”, a crown for the winner and the axe for the loser's head.^[5][9]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named any cutting tool with a broad blade: a carpenter's axe for wood, and a big two-handed axe used as a weapon.^[2] In Compagni's chronicle the block and the axe are set up in the square to punish criminals.^[9]

At the end of the 18th century it was used for the blade of the guillotine, first by Carlo De Nicola (1798–1800).^[5] From execution came the figurative senses: a looming danger, and a tyrannical or bloody regime.^[10][4][1] In the kitchen and at the butcher's the mannaia is a heavy cleaver with a trapezoidal blade.^[10][11][12]

Timeline

• 1100–1150 – A Pisan document has the word.^[2]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses mannaia for the headsman's axe.^[5][9]
• 1798–1800 – Carlo De Nicola uses it for the blade of the guillotine.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A heavy axe with a long handle, used in the past especially by the executioner to behead.^[10][11][3]
2. The blade of the guillotine; also the guillotine itself.^[10][11]
3. (by extension) Beheading, the death penalty.^[10]
4. (figurative) A grave threat hanging over someone: la mannaia dei tagli al bilancio.^[10][11][12]
5. (figurative) A tyrannical and bloody regime.^[4][1]
6. A woodcutter's axe; in farming, a broad-bladed axe for squaring logs.^[10][12][3]
7. A cleaver: a heavy blade with one or two handles used by butchers and cooks to cut meat and bone.^[10][4][13]

Word family

• mannaretta
• mannarino

Related words

• mano
• maniera
• manuale

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
10. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli