ontano

Forms

ontano m (plural ontani)^[1] Old Italian also has untani beside ontani.^[2] Dialect forms include Emilian lodàn at Parma, Romagnol untàn and Venetian oldàno, and on Elba the forms oltano and ortano, closer to the Latin.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin alnetanus, a Late Latin word known only from the glosses, first identified as the source by Diez.^[3][5][6][7] The word is formed from alnetum (“alder grove”), a collective of Latin alnus (“alder”).^[3][5][8] DELI and Nocentini take the collective as unattested, while Sabatini–Coletti treats it as a classical Latin word.^[3][5][9]

Salvioni found the derivative in ⟨-etanu⟩ all over Italy south of a line from La Spezia to Parma and Bologna, except in Calabria.^[3] The LEI sees the Late Latin word as an Italo-Romance wave that reached Calabria and was then spread further by the literary language.^[4][3] Meyer-Lübke lists Neapolitan autane, Sicilian autanu (which means larch there), Emilian lodan and the Marche form amedano, which the LEI explains as a blend with olmo.^[7][4] The plain Latin word survives as the literary alno, in Sardinian, and in Gallo-Romance, as French aune.^[10][11]

The Latin tree name corresponds to Old High German elira (modern German Erle) and Lithuanian alksnis.^[5][12] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *alsno-, and follows Derksen in taking the variation between ⟨*e-⟩ and ⟨*a-⟩ and between the suffixes in Balto-Slavic and Germanic as a sign of an old loanword from a non-Indo-European language.^[12] Wiktionary instead gives Proto-Indo-European *h₂élsnos.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1291–1298, in the sense of a tree of the genus Alnus and its wood.^[2] DELI's first date is the Italian translation of Palladius of about 1340.^[3] A place name Untanita is already recorded in Tuscany in 1045.^[6][13]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning, the alder tree and its soft wood.^[8][2] The LEI finds it in literary Italian from Alamanni (1521) on, and Tommaseo quotes his line on the poplar and the alder that live under water by the stream (il popolo e l'ontano / Sott'acqua presso al rio).^[4][14] Nineteenth-century botany describes the wood as good fuel, able to take a fine polish and to last a long time in water.^[14]

Derivatives name the place where the tree grows: ontaneto is recorded before 1424 (Sercambi) and in the Pataffio, and ontaneta before 1871 (Savi).^[3][5] At Siena ontanello is the name of the siskin.^[13][7]

Timeline

• 1045 – The place name Untanita is recorded in Tuscany.^[6]
• 1291–1298 – Ontano appears in a Florentine document.^[2]
• c. 1340 – The Italian translation of Palladius uses ontano and alno.^[3][10]
• Before 1424 – Sercambi uses ontaneto for an alder grove.^[3]
• 1521 – Alamanni's use begins the word's continuous literary record.^[4]
• Before 1871 – Savi uses ontaneta.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. alder: a tree or shrub of the genus Alnus of the birch family, especially the black alder, common by rivers and in wet ground: ontano bianco (grey alder), ontano nero (black alder), ontano verde (green alder).^[8][15][16]
2. The soft, light wood of these trees, used in cabinetmaking and for turned work.^[8][15]

Word family

• ontaneto
• ontaneta
• ontanello

Related words

• alno
• Latin alnus
• French aune

Usage notes

Alno is a synonym, mainly literary.^[17][18][10]

References

1. ^ a b 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 f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 190
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2659
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 194
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ a b 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 Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 711
14. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ 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
16. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
17. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli