pagello

Forms

pagello m (plural pagelli)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pagellus, a diminutive of Latin pager (also phager), the name of the pagro.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin fish name is from Ancient Greek φάγρος (phágros).^[2][3][5] Nocentini notes that in Cretan Greek the word means a whetstone, which may be its first sense: Isidore compared the fish's sharp teeth, able to crush oysters, to such a stone.^[3] DELI and Zingarelli give the same comparison with a question mark, and Sabatini–Coletti and the Treccani gloss the Greek word as a voracious fish instead.^[2][6][7][8]

The same diminutive is Old French pagel, Occitan pageou, Corsican pachiellu and Catalan pagell, from which Spanish pagel comes.^[9][3][10] Battisti and Alessio call the Italian word learned, from the area of Sardinia and Livorno, and Prati says it came in by the literary route.^[10][11] The word later passed into scientific Latin as the name of the genus.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is from F. Tedaldi at the end of the 15th century, a sea fish with silvery skin and prized flesh.^[2] The GDLI quotes his line muggin, pagelli, orate mangio tante (“I eat so many mullets, pandoras and gilthead breams”).^[12]

Semantic evolution

Battisti and Alessio date the word only from Salvini in the 18th century, whose line L'acceso pagello, il simo pagro (“the bright-red pandora, the snub-nosed porgy”) Tommaseo quotes.^[10][13] In the 19th century Tommaseo still describes it as the Sardinian name of the fish usually called parago, now also used in written Italian.^[13]

In modern zoology the word names a genus of the sea bream family, with several edible species in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.^[4][7] Common names are formed with it: pagello fragolino, pagello occhialone, pagello mormora.^[4][14]

Timeline

• Late 15th century – F. Tedaldi uses pagelli in a list of fish.^[2][5]
• 18th century – Salvini uses the word in his translation of Oppian's poem on fishing.^[10][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. pandora, sea bream: a sea fish of the genus Pagellus, with a silvery or pinkish, flattened, humped body, common on rocky and sandy bottoms and good to eat; especially the common pandora (pagello fragolino).^[4][7][6][8]
2. (zoology, capitalized) The genus Pagellus of the family Sparidae.^[4][7][14]

Related words

• pagro
• fragolino

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2720
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 724
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 363
13. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ 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