pelle

Forms

pelle f (plural pelli)^[1] Old Italian also had pella, and an old plural le pelle beside le pelli.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pellis (“skin, hide”).^[3][4][5][1] The word is panromance: French peau, Occitan pel, Catalan pell, Spanish piel, Sardinian peḍḍe and Romanian piele.^[4][6] Meyer-Lübke adds Dalmatian pial, Friulian piel and Engadine pel, and notes that in western France and in Gascony the descendants of the word came to mean “bark”.^[7] Latin passed the word on to Old Irish pell.^[8]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *pelni- and a Proto-Indo-European *pel-ni- (“skin, hide”), related to Old High German fel and Old English fell, from Proto-Germanic *fel-n-, and with other suffixes to Lithuanian plėnė (“membrane”).^[9] He sees behind them a root *pel-, perhaps “to strip, to skin”, which is not attested on its own.^[9][1] Nocentini compares the English cognates fell and, with a different suffix, film.^[4] Devoto stresses that all the related forms have a double /ll/.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the sense “tanned animal hide”, in a Tuscan declaration by one Paxia from the end of the 12th century.^[3] The skin of the human body follows in Bonvesin da la Riva before 1315, where rose water boasts that it drives diseases out of “sickly skin” (l'infirmiza pelle), and in Dante.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Dante already used the word for an outer layer or crust of something, and for the skin stretched over the bones of the starving in Purgatory: che da l'ossa la pelle s'informava, “that the skin took its shape from the bones”.^[3][11] By the end of the 14th century Antonio Pucci used it for the body and life itself, the sense of today's rischiare la pelle and salvare la pelle.^[3][12] DEI dates salvar la pelle to Luca Pulci in the 15th century and lasciar la pelle, to die, to Giambullari in the 16th.^[8]

Many derivatives came through French: pellettiere and pelletteria go back to Old French pelletier (1160) and pelleterie, and pellerossa is a calque of French Peau-Rouge, although the oldest Italian example, pelli rosse in an 1828 translation of Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, follows the English redskin.^[3][4] Pelliccia is probably the Late Latin pellicia, clothes made of hide.^[3] Pellagra is a Lombard word, first in the Latin title of a Milanese treatise of 1771 and in Italian in 1780, probably pelle crossed with podagra.^[3] Recently the phrase sulla propria pelle, “at one's own expense”, has spread from journalism into common use.^[3]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Pelle “tanned hide” appears in a Tuscan declaration.^[3]
• Before 1315 – Bonvesin da la Riva uses it for human skin.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for skin and for an outer layer of something.^[3]
• Before 1388 – Antonio Pucci uses pelle for life itself.^[3]
• 1483 – Luigi Pulci has the pejorative pellaccia.^[3]
• 1780 – Pellagra is first used in an Italian title.^[3]
• 1828 – Pelli rosse appears in a translation of Cooper.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. skin: the tissue that covers the human body; also its colour or texture, complexion: Ha la pelle chiara e si scotta subito.^[5][13][12]
2. The outer covering of an animal: il serpente cambia pelle, the snake sheds its skin.^[5][13]
3. leather, tanned hide: una giacca di pelle, un divano in pelle.^[5][12][14]
4. The peel of fruit and vegetables: Togli la pelle ai pomodori prima di cuocerli.^[5][12][15]
5. The outer surface or thin layer of something, such as the worked face of a building stone or a coat of plaster.^[5][12][14]
6. (figurative, colloquial) Life, one's skin: rischiare la pelle, salvare la pelle.^[5][12] Fare la pelle a qualcuno is to kill them, lasciarci la pelle to die.^{[5][12][14][15]}
7. (figurative, popular) A tough or unscrupulous person, a pellaccia.^[5][12][16]
8. (archaic) Outward appearance, as in Dante.^[5][12]

Word family

• pellaccia
• pellame
• pellaio
• pelletteria
• pellettiere
• pelliccia
• pellicola
• pellerossa
• pellagra
• spellare
• crepapelle

Related words

• Latin pellis
• French peau
• English fell

Usage notes

Common set phrases: pelle d'oca (goose flesh), a fior di pelle (on the surface, avere i nervi a fior di pelle, to be on edge), avere la pelle dura (to be tough), essere pelle e ossa (to be skin and bone), non stare nella pelle (to be bursting with joy or impatience) and amici per la pelle (inseparable friends).^[15][14][13]

Two minor homographs exist.^[5][13] Pelle was an old Roman measure for liquids, especially oil, of about 82 litres, used until the metric system, a Roman variant of another measure name.^[5][17] And literary pelle, with a closed /e/, is the old contraction of per and the article le.^[13][14][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 955
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2826
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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 959