pala

pala¹ shovel

Etymology tree of pala¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin pāla

Italian pala

From the same root · pala¹

English pallet ← pāla

Latin bipālium ← pāla

Pronunciation

• /ˈpa.la/^[1]

Forms

pala f (plural pale)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the shovel is inherited from Latin pāla (“spade, shovel; winnowing shovel”).^[2][3][4][1] It is found in western Romance as French pelle, Occitan pala, Catalan pala, Spanish pala and Portuguese pá, but not in Romanian;^[3][5][6] French pale “oar blade” is a loan from Occitan.^[3][5][6]

The Latin word is usually traced to Proto-Italic *pākslā, a tool “driven into” the ground, from the root of Latin pangō (“to drive in, fix”);^[3][2][1] Varro already linked the two.^[3][2][1] Further back is Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten”), the root of Latin pāx as well.^[1][7] The OLD calls the connection with the verb doubtful.^[8] palo belongs to the same family.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Florentine document of 1287, with the sense of a tool with a broad flat blade on a handle, for moving loose material.^[9] DELI's first record is Bono Giamboni, who died before 1292.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used pala for the shovel used to winnow grain and for the baker's peel (pala per lo forno, 1301).^[9][2] Dante applied it to the blades of a mill wheel, and the oar blade is recorded in 1495; the flat blades of turbines, fans and propellers came later.^[2][9]

From the shape, the Venetian dialect called an altarpiece pala in 1288; the sense reached written Italian in 1561 and the common language only in the 19th century.^[2] In 1871 Tommaseo's dictionary remarked that painters everywhere in Italy now said pala for a large altar painting, a word better understood than the technical ancona.^[2] DEI compares the Pala d'oro of St Mark's in Venice.^[5] French has borrowed the art term in the 20th century.^[10]

In Sicily and Calabria pala is the flat pad of the prickly pear;^[5][11] DEI takes this sense from Spanish pala rather than from the Italian shovel.^[5][11] Recent senses are the server for cakes (1973) and the pala meccanica, a mechanical loader.^[2][7][12]

Timeline

• 1287 – Pala appears in a Florentine document.^[9]
• 1288 – Venetian pala “altarpiece” is recorded.^[2][10]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses pala.^[2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the word for the blades of a wheel.^[2]
• 1301 – Pala per lo forno “baker's peel” is recorded.^[2]
• 1495 – The blade of an oar is first called pala.^[2]
• 1561 – Pala “altarpiece” appears in Italian.^[2][10]
• 1563 – Palata “shovelful” is first recorded.^[2]
• 1871 – Tommaseo's dictionary notes pala as the painters' common word for an altarpiece.^[2]
• 1973 – Pala for a cake server enters the dictionaries.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. shovel: a tool with a broad, flat or slightly hollow blade on a long handle, for digging and moving earth, sand or gravel: Scavarono una buca con la pala.^{[4][13][14][7]}
2. A peel, the long-handled wooden paddle used to put bread or pizza into an oven and take it out.^{[4][13][14][7]}
3. The flat blade of an oar or rudder.^{[4][13][14][7]}
4. Each blade of a propeller, turbine, fan or mill wheel.^{[4][13][14][7][12]}
5. (sport) The end of a cricket bat.^[4][13][7]
6. (art) Altarpiece, also pala d'altare: a large painted or carved panel set upright on an altar.^{[4][13][7][12]}
7. (regional) A flat pad of the prickly pear.^[4][14][12]
8. (zoology) The flattened part of a deer's antlers.^[14]

Word family

• paletta
• palata
• palettata
• palettatura
• palare
• palamento
• spalare
• spalatore
• spalaneve
• paleggiare
• palista

pala² steep rock face

Pronunciation

• /ˈpa.la/^[1]

Forms

pala f (plural pale)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the steep rock face is borrowed from Venetian pala, a word of the Venetian and Trentino Alps.^[2][4][14] In the Valsugana it means a rock face, in the Cadore a steep grassy slope, and Friulian pale is a meadow on a steep hillside; in the Alps it also names rocky peaks such as the Pale di San Martino.^[15][2]

Its origin is disputed.^[2][3] DEI, Migliorini and Duro, and Devoto take it for a word of the pre-Indo-European Alpine substrate, a view the GDLI and most modern dictionaries share.^{[2][5][16][4][17]} DEI points to its wide spread in the place names of the central Alps and the Pyrenees, to alternations of /a/ with /e/ and of /p/ with /f/ in mountain names, and compares Ancient Greek πέλλα (pélla, “stone”), a gloss in Hesychius.^[5] Meyer-Lübke likewise set up a pre-Roman word for a steep meadow, with Romansh pala and Ladin pela.^[6]

Prati rejected the substrate view and took the word as a metaphor from the shovel, the baker's peel, whose broad smooth surface was compared with smooth rock faces.^[15][2] He pointed to the sense “steep meadow”, to Canavese place names taken from a local word for the shovel, and to the Venetian sense “altarpiece”, also named for its flat shape.^[15][2] Nocentini follows Prati.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word entered Italian dictionaries in 1892 as a term of mountain geography, for a very steep slope and then for a rocky peak.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Migliorini counted pala among the dialect words for landforms, beside calanco, cengia, croda and foiba, that had entered the common language in recent decades.^[16] It is used above all for the Dolomites of Trentino, the Bellunese and the Cadore.^[17][16]

Timeline

• 1892 – Pala is first recorded in Italian as a geographical term.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional, geography) A mountain with a very steep rock face, especially in the eastern Alps: Le pale delle Dolomiti erano rosse al tramonto.^{[4][13][14][12]}
2. (regional) A long, very steep meadow reaching up to the foot of a rock wall.^[4][13][14]