pagina

Forms

pagina f (plural pagine)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian paggina and Old Italian paina.^[2]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin pāgina (“column of writing, page”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin word was first a farming term: Pliny uses it for a section of vineyard, the rectangle formed by a crosspiece joining four vine stakes, and the rows of a written column were seen as a similar layout.^[3][4][6] It belongs with pangō (“to fix, drive in”), pāgus (“country district”) and pāx (“peace”), from a full grade of Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten”), the root also of Ancient Greek πήγνυμι (pḗgnumi, “to fix”).^[7][4][1]

Medieval Latin in central Italy had the spoken forms Medieval Latin pahina and Medieval Latin paina from the 7th to the 10th century.^[8] The inherited doublet is pania, birdlime spread on twigs.^[1][9] The Latin word also gave French page, from which came English page, and Spanish página.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the rhymes of Nicolò de' Rossi, of the first half of the 14th century, for one side of a leaf; there it can also mean part of a text or a book, and sacra pagina is the Bible.^[2] DELI, GRADIT and Nocentini date the word only to the 15th century, with Sannazaro (about 1485) for “written text”.^[3][5][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “face of a leaf” is dated by DELI to Firenzuola (1525), who discussed whether to pronounce its ⟨g⟩ hard or soft.^[3][6][10] Tommaseo noted in 1830 that spoken Tuscan said faccia rather than pagina.^[3] Botanists use it for either side of a leaf blade (1809).^[3][11]

Manzoni's Promessi sposi (1825–27) has una bella pagina nella storia della famiglia, a memorable episode.^[3] The terza pagina, the culture page of Italian newspapers, began with the Giornale d'Italia in 1901, on the first night of D'Annunzio's Francesca da Rimini.^[3] Pagine gialle is a calque of American English Yellow Pages, and in computing a pagina is a block of memory and a web page.^[3][5][11]

Timeline

• 7th–10th centuries – Medieval Latin pahina, paina are common in central Italy.^[8]
• First half of the 14th century – Nicolò de' Rossi uses pagina.^[2]
• About 1485 – Sannazaro uses it for a written passage.^[3][5]
• 1525 – Firenzuola uses it for a face of a leaf of paper.^[3]
• 1798 – Impaginare “to lay out in pages” is recorded.^[4]
• 1809 – The botanical sense is recorded.^[3]
• 1825–1827 – Manzoni uses it for a memorable episode.^[3]
• 1849 – Paginatura is recorded in Carlo Cattaneo.^[3]
• 1901 – The Giornale d'Italia launches the terza pagina.^[3]
• 1971 – Paginone, a magazine's centre spread, is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. page: each of the two sides of a leaf in a book, notebook or newspaper; also the leaf itself: Il saggio occupa una trentina di pagine, ha strappato una pagina dal diario.^{[5][12][13][1]}
2. What is written on a page; a passage of a text: le pagine più belle del romanzo; in criticism, a writer's style.^[5][13][11]
3. A section of a newspaper given to one subject: la pagina sportiva.^[5][12]
4. (figurative) A memorable episode or event: una pagina buia della nostra storia.^[5][13][11]
5. (botany) Either surface of a leaf.^[5][11][14]
6. (computing) A fixed-size block of memory; a web page.^[5][11][14]

Word family

• paginatura
• paginazione
• paginone
• impaginare
• impaginazione
• spaginare

Related words

• pania
• compagine
• Latin pāgina
• French page

Usage notes

Common expressions are prima pagina (front page), a piè di pagina (at the foot of the page), terza pagina (the culture page) and voltare pagina (to turn the page, to make a fresh start).^[5][11][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2720
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana