morsicare

Forms

morsicare (first-person singular present mòrsico, first-person singular past historic morsicài, past participle morsicàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian had morcecare and morsecare, and morsegare is a dialect form.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin morsicō (“to take little bites at, nibble”), a word of Apuleius,^[3][4][5] formed from morsus, which Devoto–Oli and Treccani take as the past participle of mordeō (“to bite”) and Nocentini as the noun “bite”.^[6][7][3] Devoto and Sabatini–Coletti call it an intensive of the verb.^[8][9] De Vaan explains the Latin verb for “bite” as an iterative present with the o-grade of a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to crush, bite”, related to Ancient Greek ἀμέρδω (amérdō, “to deprive of”).^[10]

Battisti and Alessio and the GDLI call it a word of the north and of Sardinia.^[4][2] Sardinian mossigare, Occitan mossegar, Catalan mossegar and Portuguese mossegar show an old assimilation of ⟨rs⟩ to ⟨ss⟩, while the Alpine Lombard, Trentino and Veronese mosegàr, with a voiced ⟨s⟩, comes from a meeting with rosicare.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the past participle morcecato in the Laudario Urbinate, about 1300: Da li serpenti tuct’è morcecato, “he is all bitten by the serpents”.^[12][2][13]

Semantic evolution

The Storia di Stefano, from the end of the 14th century, has morsegato: Lo serpente lo livrier ebe morsegato, “the serpent had bitten the greyhound”.^[12][2] The form morsicare is first recorded in Firenzuola, before 1543.^[12] The verb was used mostly of animals, especially fierce or harmful ones, that bite to wound.^[2] Tommaseo describes it as a frequentative of mordere that in familiar speech often has the plain sense of the simple verb but none of its figurative uses, and gives the example of mosquitoes biting all over.^[14] In the dialects of Belluno and Cadore a derivative names the mole.^[4][11]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – The Laudario Urbinate has the past participle morcecato.^[12][13]
• Late 14th century – The Storia di Stefano has morsegato.^[12]
• Before 1543 – Firenzuola uses the form morsicare.^[12]
• 16th century – The noun morsicatura is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bite, take hold of with the teeth.^[13][6][15]
2. Of animals, to bite or savage.^[13][7]
3. (colloquial) Of insects, to bite or sting.^[13][9][15]
4. To nibble, take small bites at.^[16][7][1]
5. (morsicarsi) To bite one's own nails, lips or tongue; of two people or animals, to bite each other.^[15][6]

Word family

• morsicatura
• rimorsicare
• smorsicare

Related words

• morso
• mordere
• Latin morsico

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2512
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana