orza

Forms

orza f (plural orze)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian orsa, Old Italian orcia and Old Italian orce.^[2] The word is Ligurian orsa in Genoese and Venetian orza in Venetian.^[3]

Etymology

Most probably it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *orthia, from Ancient Greek ὄρθιος (órthios, “straight, upright”), whose feminine was used as a noun.^[4][2][5] The voiced /dz/ of one pronunciation is secondary, from the influence of orzo “barley”.^[4][6] The word is Old French orce and Catalan orza, which passed into Spanish orza and Portuguese orça.^[4] Medieval Latin has ortia at Amalfi in 1274.^[3][7]

The scholars who derive it from Greek differ in how and why.^[4][6] Pisani and Alessio each thought of a Greek word that Pollux gives for the lower part of a ship's mast, the mast giving its name to the sail.^[6][8][5] Henry and Renée Kahane preferred the ancient sense “straight object” spread from Provence, which did not convince Castellani.^[6] Castellani's account, which Nocentini finds the most convincing, starts from the phrase with orza meaning “against the wind” as the opposite of the one with poggia “with the wind”, which is also Greek, through Late Latin podia, and the two would have been the upper and the lower rope that set the sail.^[4][6] Pisani explained the /dz/ by a Vulgar Latin change of the ending to that of the same opposite word.^[6]

Older dictionaries derived the word from Middle Dutch lurts (“left”), taking the first l for the article, as Diez proposed and DEI still accepted;^[9][3][6] Meyer-Lübke had already doubted it.^[9][3][6] Körting connected it with orca (“large jar”).^[10] Several dictionaries still call the origin uncertain.^[11][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giordano da Pisa's sermons, before 1309, where orza is the rope fixed to the yard of a lateen sail and used to bring the sail to windward.^[2] Dante has the other sense, the windward side of a ship, in the Purgatorio (1313–1319): come nave in fortuna, / vinta da l'onda, or da poggia, or da orza (like a ship in a storm, beaten by the waves now to leeward, now to windward).^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century Buti explained Dante's line: the orza is a rope that holds the other end of the yard, and through it Dante means the left side of the ship.^[6][3] A Latin gloss of Francesco da Barberino (1314) calls the orces the ropes tied to the forward edge of the sail.^[6]

Phrases grew from both senses: andare or venire all'orza, to steer the bow towards the wind, and stare ad orza, used figuratively for being on guard.^[2][11] Caricare l'orza, to haul hard on the rope, came to mean overloading something.^[8][12] A orza e a poggia named both sides of the ship, and Ariosto used it of a wounded man reeling from side to side.^[8][12] The verb orzare is recorded as an intransitive before 1477 and as a transitive in Florio in 1598.^[6] German borrowed the word as lortza in 1434.^[14]

Timeline

• 1274 – Medieval Latin ortia is recorded at Amalfi.^[3]
• Before 1309 – Giordano da Pisa uses orza for the rope of the yard.^[2]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses orza for the windward side.^[6]
• 1314 – Francesco da Barberino glosses Latin orces as ropes of the sail.^[6]
• 1434 – German lortza is recorded.^[14]
• Before 1477 – The verb orzare is first recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (nautical) On lateen-rigged ships, the rope fixed to the parrel of the yard that brings the sail to windward.^{[11][8][15][1]}
2. (nautical) The windward side of a ship, as opposed to the poggia: andare all'orza, to luff.^{[11][8][13][15]}
3. (nautical) The bow of a boat.^[11]

Word family

• orzare
• straorzare
• orzeggiare
• orziero

Related words

• poggia
• Ancient Greek ὄρθιος (órthios)

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 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 e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana