mostoso

Forms

mostoso (feminine mostosa, masculine plural mostosi, feminine plural mostose)^[1] Old Venetian had Old Italian mostoxo.^[2] An older form is mustoso.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Italian mosto + -oso.^[4][5][6][1] The TLIO and the GDLI derive it instead from Late Latin mustuōsus, which the GDLI says spread through the Italian, Romanian, Provençal and Gascon area.^[2][3] Meyer-Lübke reconstructs *mustōsus, with Romanian mustos, Sicilian mustusu (“sticky”), Lombard mustos (“juicy, tasty”), Friulian mostos (“juicy”) and Old Occitan mostos (“dirty”).^[7][8]

Mosto is from Latin mustum (“unfermented grape juice”), the neuter of mustus (“fresh, young”).^[9][1] De Vaan finds no convincing etymology for the adjective.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Zibaldone da Canal (1310–1330), with the form mostoxo and the sense “full of juice”.^[2] Nocentini dates the word 1210–1230, while DELI's first example is Firenzuola (1518–1525), for grapes that give much must.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century Barbaro describes a herb that smells alquanto mostoso, somewhat of must.^[3] From Firenzuola onwards poets called autumn mostoso, and Pavese used it of a damp smell of rain and cellars.^[3][6] In the dialects the word took other senses: Lombard and Emilian “juicy, tasty”, Pavese “delicate”, Piacentine “pleasant”, Sicilian “sticky”.^[7] The Lombard compound malmostoso means “sullen, surly”.^[7][1]

Timeline

• 1310–1330 – The Zibaldone da Canal has Venetian mostoxo.^[2]
• Before 1494 – First record of mostoso, according to GRADIT and Zingarelli.^[4][13]
• 1518–1525 – Firenzuola uses it of autumn and of grapes rich in must.^[12][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Rich in must (mosto): of grapes, yielding much must: Quest'anno le uve sono molto mostose.^{[4][13][6][1]}
2. (literary) Smelling or tasting of must.^[4][13][14]
3. (figurative) Not yet fully developed, still to mature.^[5]

Word family

• malmostoso

Related words

• mosto
• mostarda
• Latin mustum

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. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli