paglia

Forms

paglia f (plural paglie, diminutive pagliétta or pagliòla or pagliolìna or pagliùzza or (less common) pagliùcola, augmentative paglióna or paglióne, pejorative pagliàccia)^[1] Old Italian also wrote paia, palgia and pallio.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin palea (“chaff, husk”), which in Late Latin came to mean “straw”.^[3][4][5][1] Devoto and the GDLI start from Vulgar Latin *palja, the spoken form of the classical word.^[6][2] The word is found in all the Romance languages: French paille, Occitan palha, Catalan palla, Spanish paja, Portuguese palha, Sardinian paza and Romanian pai.^[4][7]

The Latin word may be related to a stem for “chaff” in Sanskrit पलाव (palā́va), Lithuanian pelūs, Old Church Slavonic плева (pleva) and Russian полова (polova).^[8][1] De Vaan suggests that these come from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₁- (“to swing”), chaff being what is threshed off the grain, and Latin Wiktionary gives the same root.^[8][1] Nocentini finds few but sure comparisons in Baltic and Slavic, and Devoto only a vague chance of a link with the root of pelle.^[4][6]

The Latin /lj/ became the Italian palatal /ʎʎ/, written ⟨gli⟩.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Ricordi di una famiglia senese, household accounts of 1231–1262 that note money spent on straw for the house; the sense is the dry stalks of cereals left after threshing.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named the stalks used for bedding, fodder, packing and roofing, and also a single stalk.^[3][2] Figurative phrases followed: uomo di paglia, a man of no account, is recorded from Luigi Pulci in the 15th century and later meant someone who stands in for another, and fuoco di paglia, something that does not last, from Borghini in the 16th.^[9] In the 19th century the word also named a straw hat (1804).^[9]

Several derivatives took their own paths.^[3][4] Pagliaccio first meant chopped straw (before 1547) and then a circus clown (1741); DELI explains the clown's name by his costume, which looked like the cover of a straw mattress, while Nocentini thinks it first named a stuffed scarecrow.^[3][4] The Italian word passed into French as paillasse, which Spanish took as payaso.^[7] Paglietta, a stiff straw boater, is a Neapolitan word, and in Naples it also became a mocking name for a lawyer, because lawyers there once wore black straw hats.^[3]

Modern Italian uses paglia also for the colour of straw, for steel wool, for a defect in rolled metal, and in slang for a cigarette.^[5][10]

Timeline

• 1231–1262 – Paglia appears in the Ricordi di una famiglia senese.^[3]
• Before 1342 – Cavalca uses pagliaio, a haystack.^[3]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses paglierìccio for chopped straw; the sense “straw mattress” follows in 1526.^[3]
• 1400s – Luigi Pulci uses uomo di paglia for a worthless man.^[9]
• 1741 – Pagliaccio is recorded for a circus clown.^[3]
• 1804 – D'Alberti records paglia for a straw hat.^[9]
• 1905 – Panzini's dictionary records paglietta for a man's straw hat.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. straw: the dry stalks of wheat and other cereals left after harvesting and threshing, used for bedding, fodder and packing: Hanno coperto il pavimento della stalla con la paglia.^[5][11][12]
2. A single stalk of straw; also a drinking straw.^[5][10]
3. Stalks of certain plants cut and dried for weaving, and an object made of them, especially a straw hat or bag.^[5][11]
4. (figurative) Something very light; a very thin, slight person.^[5][13]
5. (slang) A cigarette; by extension a joint.^[5][14]
6. steel wool.^[5][14]
7. (metallurgy) A streak on the surface of a metal piece, a defect caused by poor heating of the ingot.^[5][13]
8. A pale yellow colour.^[5]

Adjective

1. Straw-coloured, pale yellow (invariable, after the noun): un vestito giallo paglia.^[5][13][15]

Word family

• pagliaccio
• pagliaio
• pagliericcio
• paglierino
• paglietta
• pagliuzza
• pagliolo
• paglione
• pagliata
• pagliacciata
• pagliaccetto
• pagliaccesco
• impagliare
• spagliare

Related words

• Latin palea
• French paille

Usage notes

Common phrases are avere la coda di paglia, to have a guilty conscience and so take offence easily;^[13][14][15] fuoco di paglia, a passion that soon burns out;^[13][14][15] uomo di paglia, a front man; and paglia e fieno, yellow and green tagliatelle cooked together.^[13][14][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 365
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 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 Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 312
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2721
10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli