pecora

Forms

pecora f (plural pecore)^[1] Old forms include pèccora, pècura, pègora and piègora.^[2] The dialects have Venetian piegora and Friulian piore.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pecora (“livestock”), a neuter plural taken in Italian as a feminine singular, as in meraviglia.^[5][6][7][1] The Latin plural is found in this sense from the 8th century, and it is the word for “sheep” in almost all of Italy, Piedmont being the exception.^[4] The Latin singular lives on in Sardinian pegus (“livestock”), Occitan pec (“stupid”) and Portuguese pego (“sheep”).^[6]

The Latin noun, from an older pecū, meant livestock as movable wealth, as shown by its derivatives pecūlium (“property”) and pecūnia (“money”).^[6][8] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *peḱu- (“livestock”), the source of Old High German fihu (“cattle”) and of German Vieh.^[6][8][1] De Vaan also connects Ancient Greek πέκος (pékos, “fleece”), from a related stem meaning “what is shorn”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is an inventory of Orlando d'Ugolino of 1221, in the sense “sheep”, the ruminant kept for wool, meat, skin and milk.^[5][7]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense “meek, submissive person without a will of their own” is recorded in Dante in 1304–1308, who also writes uomini siate, e non pecore matte (“be men, not mad sheep”).^[5][9] Boccaccio has the derivatives pecoraggine and pecorone for spinelessness and the spineless man (1353).^[5] Religious language calls the faithful the pecore or pecorelle of their pastor.^[7][10]

Old proverbs contrast the sheep with the wolf and the lion: chi pecora si fa, il lupo se la mangia and meglio un giorno da leone che cento da pecora.^[11][12] A pecora nera is the one who stands out for the worse in a family or group.^[11][9][12] French borrowed the word as pécore, first for “animal” before 1512 and later for a silly woman, and Spanish and Portuguese have pécora and pécora.^[13][1]

Timeline

• 8th century – Latin pecora “sheep” is found in documents.^[4]
• 1221 – Pecora appears in the inventory of Orlando d'Ugolino.^[5]
• 1298–1309 – Pecorino “of sheep” is recorded in the statutes of the wool guild of Siena.^[5]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses the word for a submissive person.^[5]
• 1344 – Casci pecorini, sheep's cheeses, are recorded.^[5]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses pecoraggine and pecorone.^[5]
• Before 1512 – French pécore is recorded.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sheep, especially the ewe, the ruminant raised for its wool, meat and milk: Il pastore riportò le pecore nella stalla.^[7][11][1]
2. The meat or the skin of this animal: Indossava un giubbotto di pecora.^[7][14][1]
3. A tame, gentle animal.^[7][11][1]
4. (figurative, derogatory) A weak, submissive person without a will of their own: Non lasciarti comandare da tutti, non sei una pecora.^{[7][11][10][1]}
5. (slang) A prostitute.^[7][1]
6. (figurative, religion) One of the faithful, in the care of a pastor; usually in the diminutive pecorelle.^[7][10][1]

Word family

• pecorella
• pecorino
• pecoraio
• pecorone
• pecoraggine
• pecorame
• pecorume
• pecoreccio
• pecorina
• cartapecora

Related words

• peculato
• peculio
• pecunia
• Latin pecus

Usage notes

The male is montone or ariete.^[10][15] The parchment word cartapecora goes back to carta di pecora, recorded in Boccaccio.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 904
3. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
4. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti