pastura

Forms

pastura f (plural pasture)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian pastur' and the plural Old Italian pasture.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin pastūra (“grazing”), which DELI and the GDLI class as a learned word.^[3][4] The Latin noun was formed with -tūra on the verb Latin pāscō (“to feed, pasture”), beside pāstus (“feeding, pasture”).^[1][3][5] It is used by Palladius and appears in the charters of Charlemagne.^[6] The same word is French pâture, Occitan pastura, Catalan pastura, Spanish pastura and Portuguese pastura.^[7][8][9] The Old French pasture of the 12th century passed on as Middle English pasture.^[6]

The verb goes back to the root Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, herd”), with Hittite, Sanskrit and Old Church Slavonic relatives.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Uguccione da Lodi's Cremonese book of the early 13th century.^[2] DELI's first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, for grazing, a place where animals find food, and fodder.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the word for pasture land and for food of animals or people;^[2][3] Dante extended it to spiritual nourishment before 1321.^[2][3] Several phrases grew from it: buona pastura for ground that yields easy profit, as in Boccaccio, tenere in pastura “to keep someone hanging on with empty promises”, and dare pastura “to fool someone with tall tales”.^[2][11][12] The TLIO also records a raid for plunder and the dung of wild animals that hounds follow.^[2]

The modern dictionaries add the hunting senses, the food and feeding place of game and its droppings, and the fishing sense, groundbait thrown into the water to draw fish.^[13][11] In 1294 the word appears in Medieval Latin at Orvieto.^[6]

Timeline

• Early 1200s – Uguccione da Lodi uses pastura.^[2]
• 1280–1297 – Pasturare in the statute of Montagutolo.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses the noun.^[3]
• 1294 – Medieval Latin pastura at Orvieto.^[6]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for spiritual nourishment.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. grazing, the feeding of animals at pasture: portare le pecore alla pastura.^[13][14][15]
2. Ground used for grazing, pasture.^[13][15]
3. The grass or fodder that grazing animals eat.^[13][12]
4. (figurative, archaic) Intellectual or spiritual nourishment.^[13][15]
5. (figurative, archaic) A chance of profit: trovare buona pastura.^[13][15]
6. (fishing) groundbait, bait thrown into the water to attract fish.^[13][14][16]
7. (hunting) The food preferred by game, or the place where it feeds; the droppings of game that hounds follow.^[13][11]

Word family

• pasturare

Related words

• pascere
• pastore
• pasturale
• pasto
• pascolo
• Latin pastura

Usage notes

Levare la pastura is a hunting term for removing part of the gut of killed game so that it does not spoil.^[11] Pastura is also a form of the verb pasturare.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2800
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org