palombo

Forms

palombo m (plural palombi)^[1] Old Italian has the southern form Old Italian palumbu, plural palumbi, and the Romanesco palomo of 1434–1449.^[2][3] The feminine palomba is recorded from the 16th century.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin palumbus (“wood pigeon”), beside which Latin also had palumbēs.^{[3][4][6][1][7]} The Latin word lives on across the Romance languages with the sense “pigeon”: Catalan paloma, Spanish palomo, Portuguese pombo and Romanian porumb, and in the diminutive Romanian porumbel.^[4][8][9] French palombe was taken from Occitan.^[4] DEI notes that the word is pan-Romance but not native to French.^[5]

DELI and Nocentini derive the Latin word from the root of Latin pallidus (“pale”) and palleō (“to be pale”), formed in the same way as Latin columbus (“dove”): the bird was named for its pale grey plumage.^{[3][4][10][11]} GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti also call it a word of the same root as pallidus.^[6][12]

The sense “smooth-hound”, a small shark, arose in Italian.^[3] Nocentini explains it by the colour: the fish is grey on the back and white below, like the bird, and sea creatures are often named after land animals in this way.^[4][12][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Neapolitan Regimen Sanitatis of the 13th century, with palumbu meaning a pigeon kept also for the table.^[2] In the Tuscan form palombo DELI's first record is Leon Battista Alberti, before 1472, as the wild pigeon.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th and 16th centuries palombo meant the wood pigeon, and Landino glossed it as “wild doves” in his Pliny.^[11] The word stayed at home in central and southern Italy: Devoto–Oli marks the bird sense as regional to those areas, where the standard language says colombaccio.^[13][14]

The fish name appears as pesce palombo in Domenico Romoli in 1560, and Redi used it in the 17th century for a shark of the genus Mustelus.^[3][5][11] In modern Italian this is the main sense: the smooth-hound is sold for its white, easily digested flesh.^[6][15] Artusi noted that in some places it was simply called pesce cane.^[11] In the slang of the underworld GRADIT records palombo for a white handkerchief.^[6]

Timeline

• 13th century – The Neapolitan Regimen Sanitatis has palumbu.^[2]
• 1434–1449 – Palomo appears in a Roman recipe book.^[3]
• Before 1472 – Leon Battista Alberti uses palombo for the wild pigeon.^[3][4]
• 1531 – The feminine palomba and palombino are recorded in Roseo.^[5]
• 1560 – Domenico Romoli names the pesce palombo.^[3][11]
• 17th century – Redi uses the word for the shark.^[5][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) smooth-hound, a small harmless shark of the genus Mustelus, grey above and white below, especially Mustelus mustelus of the Mediterranean.^[6][13][16]
2. The white flesh of this fish as food.^[6][15]
3. (regional, central and southern Italy) Colombaccio, the wood pigeon; also any pigeon.^[6][13][12]
4. (underworld slang) A white handkerchief.^[6]

Word family

• palomba
• palombaccio
• palombella
• palombino
• palombara

Related words

• colombo
• pallido
• Latin palumbus
• French palombe

References

1. ^ a b c 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 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2736
6. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli