minutaglia

Forms

minutaglia f (plural minutaglie)^[1] Old spellings include Old Italian menuaglia and Old Italian minutalglia.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin minūtālia (“small things”), the neuter plural of minūtālis (“small, trifling”), an adjective formed from Latin minūtus (“small”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin noun is recorded in Tertullian.^[6] minūtus is the participle of minuō (“to diminish”).^[7][1]

The TLIO treats the word as an Italian derivative of minuto, while the GDLI calls it learned.^[2][8] The same Late Latin plural gave Romanian măruntaie (“entrails”) and Old French menuaille (“small change; fry of fish”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Pavian paraphrase of the Neminem laedi of 1342, where the word means the common people, with a contemptuous tone: people of low or base condition.^[2] DELI dates this sense, “rabble”, to the chronicle of Donato Velluti (1367–1370).^[10]

Semantic evolution

The old sense survives in the Cronica of Velluti, who tells of “many people of the rabble” (molta gente di minutaglia) sent out of the palace.^[6] The sense “heap of small, useless things” is recorded from the 16th century: DELI dates it to 1563 (Michelangelo Florio), the Zingarelli to 1561.^[10][11] In Florio's translation of Agricola's work on metals the minutaglie are the small chips of flint scattered to level a road.^[8][6]

From small objects the word passed to small details and trifles, as in “grammatical and orthographical minutaglie” (commas, points, accents).^[6][5] In cooking it names an assortment of small fish for frying, and in hunting small and little-valued feathered game.^[5][4][12] Nievo wrote of a “museum of minutaglie”, locks of hair, pebbles and dried flowers that he carried with him for years.^[8]

Timeline

• 1342 – A Pavian paraphrase of the Neminem laedi uses minutaglia for the common people.^[2]
• 1367–1370 – Donato Velluti's chronicle uses the word for the rabble.^[10]
• Before 1388 – GRADIT's date of first record.^[5]
• 1561 – The Zingarelli's date for the sense “small useless things”.^[11]
• 1563 – Michelangelo Florio uses minutaglie of small fragments of stone.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (often plural) A collection of small, useless things of little value; odds and ends: Il ripostiglio è pieno di minutaglie.^[5][13][4]
2. (figurative) A minor detail, a trifle.^[5][11][14]
3. (literary, derogatory) The lower classes, the common people.^[5][12]
4. (cooking) Small fish of several kinds for frying, whitebait.^{[5][4][13][1]}
5. (hunting) Small feathered game of little value.^[5]

Related words

• minuto
• minuzia
• Latin minūtus
• Old French menuaille

Usage notes

Paccottiglia is given as a synonym of the first sense.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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 g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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. 10, 478
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli