otre

Forms

otre m (plural otri)^[1] Older and literary forms are Old Italian otro and Old Italian utre.^[2][3] Otro is also Pistoian and Sienese.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ŭter, a leather bag for liquids.^[6][7][8][9] The word is pan-Romance: Occitan oire, Catalan odre, Spanish odre, Portuguese odre, Romanian utre, Aromanian utri and Sardinian urdi (Campidanese).^[7][10][11] French outre is a learned transmission.^[7] In northern dialects the type Venetian ludro (Venice) and Emilian ludri (Bologna) comes from a crossing with lura.^[4][10]

The origin of the Latin word is disputed.^[6][12] Many take it from Ancient Greek ὑδρία (hudría, “water jar”), a derivative of ὕδωρ (húdōr, “water”), passed to Rome through Etruscan, which would explain Latin ⟨t⟩ for Greek ⟨d⟩.^{[7][13][3][14]} DELI calls the etymology unsafe but does not exclude this route, and the OLD calls the word probably an adaptation of the Greek one.^[6][9] De Vaan thinks /tr/ can have arisen within Latin from /dr/, so that the Latin noun may be an inherited Proto-Italic *udri-, Proto-Indo-European *ud-r-i- (“water vessel”), cognate with Old Irish otre (“goatskin bottle”) and the Greek word for a water jar.^[12] Wiktionary likewise derives it from *wed- (“water”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first records are 14th-century: the vernacular Dialogues of Saint Gregory, F. Sacchetti and the vernacular Bible, for a whole skin, usually a goat's, sewn up at the openings to carry liquids.^[6] In the vernacular Gregory a man asks: Empietemi questo otre, e a voi ritornerà bene (“Fill this skin for me, and it will come back to you well”).^[15]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the skin for oil, wine and water and also for grain: the vernacular Livy has otri pieni di grano.^[2] A chronicle quoted by Tommaseo tells of men crossing a river con otri pieni di vento, skins blown up with air.^[15] Sacchetti has a severed head put in un otro pien di sangue.^[15][2]

The full skin became an image of the glutton and the drunkard (pieno come un otre) and, in literary use, of the vain man, otre gonfio di vento, perhaps recalling the bag of winds Aeolus gave Ulysses.^[16][17] Technical senses followed in the 19th century: in botany a leaf of insectivorous plants shaped like a cup, and in 1889 Guglielmotti records an air-filled bag that helped swimmers and divers.^[4] Mathematics calls a one-sided surface otre di Klein, and oceanography uses the word for the dead swell.^[16][8]

Timeline

• 1300s – First records in the vernacular Gregory, Sacchetti and the vernacular Bible.^[6]
• Before 1348 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[3]
• 1500s – The form otro is used by G. Cecchi.^[4]
• 1500s – The diminutive otricolo is borrowed from Latin utriculus.^[7]
• 1800s – The botanical sense “ascidium” appears.^[4]
• 1869 – The adjective otricolare is first recorded.^[7]
• 1889 – Guglielmotti records the nautical sense, an air bag for swimmers and divers.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A skin container, usually of goat hide tanned and sewn into a bag, used especially in the past to keep and carry liquids such as wine, oil and water: a wineskin or waterskin.^{[8][17][16][1]}
2. The amount of liquid such a container holds: Si scolarono un otre d'acqua in due.^[8][17][16]
3. (figurative) A symbol of greed, drunkenness or fatness: pieno come un otre, having eaten or drunk too much.^[17][16][3]
4. (literary, figurative) otre gonfio di vento or otre pieno di vento: a vain, conceited person.^[16][17][8]
5. (literary) The bag of a bagpipe, into which the pipes are fitted.^[3][13]
6. (mathematics) otre di Klein: the Klein bottle.^[16][8]
7. (oceanography) A swell no longer driven by the wind: the same as onda morta.^[16][8]

Word family

• otricello
• otricolo
• otricolare
• otrello
• otricino

Related words

• Latin uter
• French outre

Usage notes

The stress falls on the first syllable, ótre;^[3] Zingarelli also allows an open vowel.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. 12, 270
3. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2703
5. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 718
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
17. ^ 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