manovella

Forms

manovella f (plural manovelle)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian manoella, Old Italian manuella and a masculine Old Italian manovello.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *manibella or *manubella, from Latin manus (“hand”).^[4][5][6][1] The sources differ on the intermediate step.^[7][8][9] Nocentini makes it a diminutive of manubrium (“handle”).^[7] Sabatini–Coletti start from *manubula (“handle”), and Prati and Devoto from *manibula.^[8][3][10] Zingarelli and Gabrielli derive it from manicula, a diminutive of the word for “hand”.^[9][11] GRADIT gives the link with the Latin word for “hand” as only possible.^[4]

Diez took it as a hybrid compound of mano and Old High German wella (“roller, shaft”).^[12] Zaccaria objected that such a compound could not have been coined in Italy with a German word that was not used on its own, and that the word also exists in French.^[12] The word in French is manivelle, from which Spanish manivela was borrowed.^[7] Battaglia also cites Old French manuele (14th century) and Spanish manuella.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, who glosses trochei as manovelle: in his translation of Vegetius the bridge of a siege tower is lowered with ropes worked by them.^[14][13] The sense was a stout bar of wood or metal used as a lever, to shift weights or turn a winch or a press.^[13][6]

Semantic evolution

For centuries a manovella was a lever: Renaissance carnival songs list subbie, manovelle e pali among the tools for bringing down a tower.^[15] A sexual sense, the penis, appears in the sonnets of Rustico Filippi.^[2] The form manuella in Ramelli (1588) reflects the French text printed beside it.^[14] Only in the 19th century, again under French influence, did the word lose the sense “lever” and take that of the crank.^[14]

DELI dates the mechanical sense, a crank that turns reciprocating motion into rotation through a connecting rod, from 1853 (Carena).^[14] Early cine cameras were cranked by hand, and Pirandello's novel Si gira... (1915) has dare il primo giro di manovella for starting to shoot a film.^[14][5] Italian passed the word to Ottoman Turkish, whence Turkish manivela.^[1]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni glosses trochei as manovelle.^[14]
• 1588 – Ramelli uses manuella under the influence of French.^[14]
• 1853 – Carena records the mechanical sense, a crank.^[14]
• 1915 – Pirandello uses dare il primo giro di manovella for starting a film.^[14]
• 1957 – Manovellismo “crank mechanism” is recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A crank, handle: a bent arm with a grip, used to turn a mechanism by hand, as on a coffee grinder or an old cine camera.^[4][5][8]
2. (mechanics) The member of a manovellismo that turns fully round a fixed point.^[4][5][16]
3. (archaic) A bar used as a lever.^[4][5][6]

Word family

• manovellismo

Related words

• mano
• manubrio
• French manivelle

Usage notes

Dare il primo giro di manovella “to give the first turn of the crank” means to start shooting a film, and the last turn to finish it.^[5][9][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 630
4. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves, p. 341
13. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 9, 730
14. ^ 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
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana