Etymologically
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mica

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mica1 crumb; not at all

Pronunciation

Forms

mica f (plural miche)[1] Old and northern variants are Old Italian miga, used by Boccaccio, and Old Italian micca.[2][3][4] Sabatini–Coletti explain the double consonant of the latter as a hypercorrection.[5]

Etymology

The crumb and the adverb are inherited from Latin mīca (“crumb, grain”).[6][7][3][1] DELI calls the noun a learned word.[8] The adverb grew out of negative phrases in which the noun meant “not a crumb”, and Petronius already writes of someone who for five days took not a crumb of bread.[8][6][2] The same use made the variant Lombard minga the ordinary negative there.[6][9]

The noun is French mie and Spanish miga, and as a reinforcement of the negative the word is also Old French mie and Old Occitan miga.[6][9][10] It passed into Basque mika and into Berber.[9][2]

The Latin word, recorded from Cato, is traditionally connected with minor (“smaller”) and Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós, “small”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeyg- (“small, thin”).[6][1][11] De Vaan, following Nyman, prefers Proto-Italic *meikā from Proto-Indo-European *meik-h₂- (“blinking”), the root of micō (“to flash, quiver”), since the word first meant a grain of salt and then any glittering particle.[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adverb is the older record: it appears in the 12th-century Ritmo di Sant'Alessio with the sense “not at all”.[8][5] The noun, a crumb or small grain, is found in the Urbino Laudi of about 1300 and in Jacopone da Todi before 1306.[8][7]

Semantic evolution

In the old and literary language the noun meant a crumb of bread or any tiny piece: Boccaccio, speaking to the Muses, says he has gathered “some crumbs fallen from your table” (alcune miche da quella cadute).[13][14] Tommaseo describes the adverb as a word that strengthens the negative, like French mie, point and pas, with examples from Boccaccio and Petrarch.[13]

In modern colloquial Italian mica follows the verb to strengthen non, can stand alone as the negative before the verb, and means “by any chance” in questions.[7][3][5] Mica male “not bad at all”, a litotes for a favourable judgement, was described by Panzini as a Milanese expression of familiar speech.[8][4] In Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria and Emilia mica means a loaf, with the diminutive michetta, from a spoken Latin form with a double consonant rather than from French miche.[15][3] The scientific diminutive micella was introduced in the 19th century, according to some dictionaries by the Swiss botanist Nägeli, and Italian micella “micelle” is recorded in 1917.[8]

Timeline

  • 12th century – The adverb appears in the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio.[8]
  • c. 1300 – The noun appears in the Urbino Laudi.[8]
  • Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses the noun.[8][7]
  • 18th century – Michetta is recorded.[6]
  • 1917 – Micella is recorded.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (archaic, literary) A crumb of bread.[7][3][14][1]
  2. (literary) A tiny piece of anything, a grain.[7][3][14]
  3. (Northern Italy) A small round bread roll.[3]

Adverb

  1. (colloquial) At all, in the least, strengthening a negative, usually after the verb: Non sono mica stanco.[7][3][14][1]
  2. (colloquial) Not, standing alone before the verb or another word: Mica gliel'ho detto io![7][5][4][1]
  3. (colloquial) By any chance, in questions and doubtful statements: Hai mica visto il mio telefono?[7][3][5][1]
  4. In mica tanto, not much, not very.[7][3]

Word family

  • michetta
  • micella
  • miccino
  • micolino

mica2 mica (mineral)

Pronunciation

Forms

mica f (plural miche)[1]

Etymology

The mineral is a learned word, borrowed from Latin mīca (“crumb, grain”), taken into mineralogy in the 16th century.[8][6][7][1] Latin already used the noun for a flake of gold, in Lucretius and Vitruvius, and it was associated with micō (“to flash, glitter”), since the cleavage flakes of the mineral shine like mother-of-pearl.[2][7][4][5] The translation German Glimmer, used by Agricola, shows how 16th-century scholars understood it.[2] The same word is French mica, Spanish mica and Portuguese mica.[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Michelangelo Florio, in 1563, describes a stone with white glinting sparks and says that the Latins call it mica or moglichetta and the German miners “cat silver”.[8][13]

Semantic evolution

Tommaseo describes it as a stone found in flexible, elastic flakes as shiny as glass, popularly called argento di gatto “cat silver”.[13] The compound micascisto “mica schist” is recorded in 1817 as micaschisto and in 1875 in its modern form, and the adjective micaceo dates from the 19th century.[8][6][2]

Timeline

  • 1563 – Michelangelo Florio names the mineral mica.[8]
  • 1817 – Micaschisto is recorded.[8]
  • 1875 – Micascisto is recorded.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (mineralogy) mica, any of a group of sheet silicates of aluminium and alkali metals that split into thin shining flakes and are used as electrical insulators.[7][3][5][1]

Word family

  • micascisto
  • micaceo
  • micca
  • Latin mīca
  • French mie

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2450
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  13. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  14. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  15. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET