moggio

Forms

moggio m (plural moggia f or (rare) moggi m or (archaic) mogge f)^[1] The plural is usually feminine moggia, less often moggi, archaically mogge.^[2][3] Old forms include Old Italian mogio.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin modius (“a dry measure, peck”), which is probably formed from modus (“measure”).^[4][6][7][3] Devoto compares the relation of Latin dupondius to pondus.^[8] The Latin ⟨-dj-⟩ gave ⟨-gg-⟩ here, the other outcome beside the ⟨-zz-⟩ of mezzo.^[8]

The word is found across Romance except in Romanian: French muid, Occitan muei, Spanish moyo and Portuguese moio.^[6][9][10] Old High German mutti was borrowed from it.^[10] The same Latin word, in its sense of a wheel hub, gave mozzo³, a doublet, and the learned modio names the Roman measure.^[1][9][11]

The Latin noun for “measure” is from Proto-Italic *medo- (“measure”), from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the plural mogia in the late 12th-century rent records of the Badia di Coltibuono, a measure of capacity for dry goods.^[4][5] In the Matasala accounts of 1238 a mill is leased for a rent of so many mogia of grain a year, and the form moggio appears about 1250 in the chapters of the Compagnia della Santa Croce of Prato.^[4][13]

Semantic evolution

The measure varied from town to town: about 622 litres at Ferrara, 585 at Florence, 146 at Milan and 333 at Venice, divided into 24 staia.^[13][2] From the 14th century the word also named the vessel that held a moggio, and in Tuscany and elsewhere an area of land, the ground needed to sow a moggio of grain.^[4][9][5] It could stand for any great quantity: Boccaccio's character wants “a thousand moggia” of good things.^[14][5]

The vessel lives on in a phrase from the Gospels, where a lamp is not lit to be put under a bushel (sub modio, Matthew 5:15): mettere la fiaccola sotto il moggio is to hide a truth or a merit.^[4][3] D'Annunzio took La fiaccola sotto il moggio as the title of a verse tragedy in 1904.^[3] English used moggio for the Italian measure from 1593.^[15]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The plural mogia appears in rent records of the Badia di Coltibuono.^[4]
• 1238 – Mogio is recorded in the Matasala accounts.^[4]
• About 1250 – Moggio appears in the chapters of the Compagnia della Santa Croce of Prato.^[4]
• 14th century – The sense “vessel for measuring” appears in the vernacular Bible.^[4]
• 1593 – Moggio is recorded in English.^[15]
• 1904 – D'Annunzio's tragedy La fiaccola sotto il moggio.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) An old unit of capacity for dry goods, especially grain, of different size from place to place; compare the English bushel.^[5][2][16]
2. A vessel holding that amount;^[5][2][17] (figurative) mettere la fiaccola sotto il moggio, to hide a truth or a merit.^[5][2][17]
3. The area of land needed to sow a moggio of grain.^[5][2]
4. (historical) An old measure of land area, used in several Italian provinces.^[5][2]
5. (literary, figurative) A great quantity.^[5][2][17]
6. (historical) The Roman modio.^[2]

Word family

• moggiata

Related words

• modio
• mozzo³
• modo
• Latin modius

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e 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 e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2486
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 10, 684
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli