ogna

Forms

ogna f (plural ogne)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ungula (“claw, hoof”), the same Latin word that gave standard unghia, which replaced it in Rome.^[1][2][3] DELI explains that Latin used the diminutive in place of unguis (“nail, claw”), as it did in other words.^[4] The same word is French ongle, Occitan ongla, Catalan ungla, Spanish uña, Portuguese unha and Romanian unghie.^[5][6]

The Latin word is the noun for the nail with the suffix -ula.^[7][1] Wiktionary notes that the formation is irregular and may go back to an older form with a suffix in /l/, related to Proto-Germanic *naglaz.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEI dates the word to the 18th century, in Niccolò Forteguerri's Ricciardetto, where something sarebbe meno che un tagliuzzo d'ogna, “would be less than a little cut of a nail”.^[8][2]

Semantic evolution

Tommaseo–Bellini list ogna as the Roman form of ugna, the old Tuscan word for the nail.^[2][5] DEI finds it in Tuscany only in parts of Monte Amiata and in Umbria, but common in Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, the Naples area and Ciociaria.^[8] Wiktionary marks it as dated Roman.^[1]

Timeline

• 1700s – Forteguerri uses ogna in the Ricciardetto.^[8][2]
• 1861 – Tommaseo–Bellini list it as a Roman form.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated, Rome, regional) a nail, fingernail or toenail; unghia.^[1][3][2]

Related words

• unghia
• Latin ungula

Usage notes

Two other words are spelled ogna.^[8][2][9] One is an old form of the adjective ogni, recorded from the 12th century.^[8][2] The other is a verb of Arcidosso and Monte Amiata meaning “it is necessary”, from Latin convenire; it matches Venetian cognér and the northern verbs for “must”.^[9][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2634
9. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET