nuvola

Forms

nuvola f (plural nuvole, diminutive nuvolétta or (less common) nuvolìna, augmentative nuvolone, pejorative nuvolàccia)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Old Italian niuvola, Old Italian nubola, Old Italian nuovola and Old Italian nuvila.^[2][3] The variant with ⟨g⟩, nugola, belongs to Veneto, Trentino, eastern Lombardy, western Tuscany and Umbria and Lazio.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nūbila (“clouds”), the neuter plural of nūbilum (“cloudy sky”), which was taken as a feminine singular.^[6][7][1] DELI, Sabatini–Coletti and Zingarelli start from Vulgar Latin *nūbula, the plural of *nūbulum, beside the classical form.^[8][9][10] GRADIT treats the feminine as formed in Italian from the masculine nuvolo.^[11]

The Latin adjective nūbilus (“cloudy”) is derived from nūbēs (“cloud”).^[12][1] The same adjective survives in Romanian nor, Friulian nul, Old Occitan nuble, Catalan núvol and Spanish nublo, which in Spanish also names a blight of grain.^[13][1] A form influenced by nebula (“mist”) lies behind northern Lombard nivola and Venetian niola.^[13]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *(s)nouþ- and Proto-Indo-European *(s)neudʰ- for the noun, whose only close cognate is Welsh nudd (“haze”).^[12] He suggests that clouds were named as a “cover”, which would link the word with nūbō (“to marry”), said of the woman.^[12]

The variant nugolo arose when the intervocalic /v/ was lost and a /g/ filled the hiatus.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Giamboni, who died before 1292, with the sense “cloud”.^[8] Giamboni explains that damp vapours gather in the air and grow so thick and dark that they hide the sun, “and these are the clouds” (e queste sono le nuvole).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante already uses the word for things shaped like a cloud, such as a cloud of flowers (una nuvola di fiori).^[8][14] His Purgatorio has the August clouds split by lightning at sunset (nuvole d'agosto).^[2][3]

The phrase vivere fra le nuvole, of someone with no sense of reality, is recorded in 1869.^[8] From such images come the figurative senses of a large quantity, a threat, and a disagreement or unease between people.^[11][5][14] An old medical sense, “cataract”, is now obsolete.^[10][15] Physics took up nuvola elettronica, and computing nuvola for remote online storage and services, the “cloud”.^[5][9]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses nuvola for a cloud.^[8]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for anything shaped like a cloud.^[8]
• 1869 – vivere fra le nuvole is recorded.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cloud: a visible mass of water droplets or ice crystals in the air that can bring rain, snow or hail; the everyday word beside the more technical nube: Il vento spinge le nuvole verso il mare.^[11][5][14]
2. A cloud-like mass of smoke, dust, steam or the like: Dal camino usciva una nuvola di fumo grigio..^[11][5][9]
3. (figurative) A great number or quantity.^[11][14]
4. (figurative) A cause of worry, a threat, or a misunderstanding between people.^[11][5][9]
5. (physics) In nuvola elettronica, the electron cloud around an atomic nucleus.^[5][9][14]
6. (computing) The cloud, as in cloud computing: data, programs and services kept on remote servers and used online.^[5][9]
7. (heraldry) A cloud as a charge, often with hands or arms coming out of it.^[16]
8. (medicine, obsolete) cataract.^[10][15][11]

Word family

• nuvoletta
• nuvolone
• nuvolaglia
• nuvolame
• nuvolata
• snuvolarsi

Related words

• nuvolo
• nube
• nuvoloso
• annuvolare
• rannuvolare
• Latin nūbēs

Usage notes

Common phrases are avere la testa fra le nuvole “to be absent-minded”, vivere tra le nuvole “to live in a dream world” and cadere or cascare dalle nuvole “to be taken completely by surprise”.^[11][5][14] Battaglia's dictionary has a separate dialect word nùvola, also nevola, for a very thin wafer, from Latin nebula.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 11, 698
3. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2613
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
8. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c 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 Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
17. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 413