pecchia

Forms

pecchia f (plural pecchie)^[1] Neapolitan keeps the initial vowel: Neapolitan apecchia.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin apĭcŭla (“little bee”), a diminutive of apis (“bee”), which survives as ape.^[3][4][1] The initial ⟨a-⟩ was lost because it was taken as part of the article, ⟨l’apecchia⟩ being heard as ⟨la pecchia⟩.^[1][4][5] The same diminutive is French abeille, Occitan abelha, Catalan abella, Spanish abeja and Portuguese abelha.^[4][6] The French word was taken from Occitan.^[6][7][8]

The LEI calls the word a typically Tuscan form, which entered the literary language without ever displacing the older and more widespread word from apis.^[8] Meyer-Lübke, seeing the Tuscan and Neapolitan forms isolated in an area of apis, suggested they might be very old loans from Occitan; the LEI rejects this, because the consonant was not voiced.^[6][8]

The Latin word for “bee” has no accepted etymology;^[9] Vennemann proposed a loan from Semitic, comparing an Egyptian word for “bee”, which de Vaan finds conceivable.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT's first record is the sermons of Giordano da Pisa, before 1311.^[10] The LEI and Zingarelli date it to the translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi about 1320, where the bees are smoked and the hives cleaned of worms;^{[8][11][3][5]} DELI dates that text about 1350.^{[8][11][3][5]}

Semantic evolution

Pecchia was always a literary or Tuscan word for the bee: Poliziano writes of the ingegnosa pecchia gathering from flower to flower, and Montale of children swarming come pecchie.^[12][13] Figurative uses show how the bee was seen: pecchia for honey by metonymy (1560), for an exquisite poet (Guarini, 1599), and pecchie delle corti for courtiers' flatterers (1624); later also a bothersome person and, in Florentine slang, the lira.^[8] Pulci's re di farfalle o di pecchie (1483) is a king of nothing.^[8]

Tommaseo records the proverb Non si può avere il mel senza le pecchie (“you can't have honey without the bees”), that is, no good comes without risk.^[5] The augmentative pecchione names the drone (1568), and pecchiaiolo is the honey buzzard, a falcon that eats the larvae of bees and wasps (1886).^[3][4][2]

Timeline

• Before 1311 – Giordano da Pisa uses pecchia in his sermons.^[10]
• About 1320 – The Italian Crescenzi has pecchie.^[8][11]
• 1483 – Pulci's re di farfalle o di pecchie is recorded.^[8]
• 1568 – Pecchione “drone” is recorded.^[3]
• 1599 – Guarini calls a poet a pecchia.^[8]
• 1886 – Pecchiaiolo “honey buzzard” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary or Tuscan) A bee: Le pecchie ronzavano intorno al tiglio.^{[10][12][14][15][1]}
2. (in the plural, botany) Bee orchids or spider orchids (Ophrys).^[10][8]
3. (vulgar slang) The vulva.^[1]

Word family

• pecchione
• pecchiaiolo
• pecchiaio

Related words

• ape
• Latin apis
• French abeille
• Spanish abeja

Usage notes

GRADIT has a second Tuscan pecchia (1880), “peel”, especially the thin skin under the shell of a chestnut, which comes from capecchia, a Tuscan form of capecchio, with loss of the first syllable.^[10][16] The GDLI places it in Lucca and Pisa, and in the Garfagnana it also means the skin on milk.^[16][17] A dyers' pecchia, the dye left in the cauldron or a cauldronful, has been traced to Late Latin picula, a diminutive of pix (“pitch”).^[16][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2813
3. ^ a b c d e 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 Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 29
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c 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. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 900
17. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 376