nibbio

Forms

nibbio m (plural nibbi)^[1] Old Italian also writes nibio.^[2] The word is Friulian nibl in Friulian and Sicilian nigghiu in Sicilian.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin nibulus (“bird of prey, hawk”), known only from a gloss, through a syncopated Vulgar Latin *niblus.^{[5][6][7][1][3]} The same word is Old French nieble, Old Occitan niblan, Spanish neblí and Old Galician-Portuguese nebri.^[6][3][8]

Most dictionaries explain the Late Latin word as a dissimilated form of a diminutive Latin *milvulus of milvus (“kite”).^{[5][7][9][10][11]} DEI calls it a probable mutual dissimilation from milvus, but finds the change of /m/ to /n/ unexplained and the Romance vowels puzzling; the REW too leaves the quality of the stressed vowel unclear.^[8][3] The GDLI reports two other routes, a Vulgar Latin *nilbus with metathesis to *niblus, or a diminutive *nilbulus.^[2] Körting started from *milvius and explained the ⟨ie⟩ of nieble by the influence of Latin nebula (“mist”).^[4]

The origin of milvus is unknown.^[5][12] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with a root meaning “stain, spot”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the 13th-century poetry of Ruggerone da Palermo, with the sense “a bird of prey with a forked tail, very long wings and a hooked beak”.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Dante's Convivio says it would be better to fly low like a swallow che come nibbio altissime rote fare sopra le cose vilissime (“than to wheel high like a kite over the vilest things”), and the Fiore di virtù and Franco Sacchetti tell that the kite pecks its own chicks when they grow fat.^[2][13]

In early poetry the word also meant a dull or cowardly man, a dupe, set against a true falcon: Angiolieri's ed è un nibbio, e par uno girfalco (“he is a kite and looks like a gyrfalcon”).^[2] Giovio used it for treachery.^[2] DEI records the sense “gull” in Tuscany, and notes that the word belongs to central and southern Italy and Friuli.^[8]

Timeline

• 13th century – Ruggerone da Palermo uses nibbio.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) A kite: any of several birds of prey of the hawk family with long wings and a forked tail, in Italy the nibbio reale (Milvus milvus) and the nibbio bruno (Milvus migrans).^{[7][14][9][10][1]}

Related words

• milvo
• Latin milvus

Usage notes

A separate regional nibbio is a variant of nebbio or ebbio, the danewort, recorded from the 16th century; its n- is the indefinite article grown onto the word.^{[7][14][9][8]}

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
5. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2582
9. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 295
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier