manucare

Forms

manucare (first-person singular present manùco, first-person singular past historic manucài, past participle manucàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] It was also written Old Italian mannucare and Old Italian manuccare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mandūcāre (“to chew; to eat”).^[1][4][5] DEI, Zingarelli and the GDLI take it as a southern form of manducare, with ⟨nd⟩ assimilated to ⟨nn⟩ and then simplified.^[6][5][2] The TLIO treats it under manicare, which it derives from the same Latin verb with the influence of masticāre, probably of southern origin for the same assimilation.^[3] The same Latin verb gave Romanian mânca, Sardinian manigare and French manger, from which Italian borrowed mangiare.^[7][1]

In Latin the verb is formed from mandūcus, a masked figure with champing jaws, which goes with mandō (“to chew, bite”).^[8][9] Walde–Hofmann, Pokorny and the LIV connect mandō with a root Proto-Indo-European *menth₂-, “to tear away”;^[9] Meiser explains the shift in meaning through “grab” and “loot”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word to the first half of the 13th century.^[4] The TLIO quotes the Florentine Fiori di filosafi (1271–1275): Con magiore istudio è da guardare con cui l'uomo mangi che quello che l'uomo manuca (“one should look more carefully at whom one eats with than at what one eats”).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian had both manucare and manicare beside mangiare;^[10] manucare was the more frequent of the two and the only one used in the forms stressed on the stem (manuco, manuchi).^[10] Dante uses it of spiritual food in the Convivio: beati quelli pochi che seggiono a quella mensa dove lo pane de li angeli si manuca (“blessed are the few who sit at the table where the bread of angels is eaten”).^[4][10] In Boccaccio's Decameron a character asks Credete voi che egli vi manuchi? (“Do you think he will eat you?”).^[4][11]

The word was used of animals as well, and figuratively of desire that “eats” the heart, as in Ariosto.^[2][11] DEI dates it from the 13th to the 16th century, and Tommaseo records the Florentine proverb Dove si manuca, Iddio mi vi conduca (“Where people eat, may God lead me there”).^[6][11] Later writers such as Parini, Monti and Nievo use it in a playful literary tone, and in Sienese magnucare is still alive.^[10][2]

Timeline

• First half of the 13th century – GRADIT's date for the first record.^[4]
• 1271–1275 – The Florentine Fiori di filosafi uses manuca.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante writes of the bread of angels that si manuca.^[4]
• 16th century – The last period of ordinary use, as DEI dates it.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (obsolete or literary, often humorous) To eat: A cena si manuca e si beve di gusto.^[4][1][5]
2. (figurative) To take in spiritual nourishment.^[4]

Related words

• manicare
• manducare
• mangiare
• Latin manduco

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 755
3. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2356
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c 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 c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET