pellegrino

Forms

pellegrino (feminine pellegrina, masculine plural pellegrini, feminine plural pellegrine)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian pelegrino, Old Italian pelegrinu and Old Italian pelligrino.^[2] The learned peregrino is an archaic or uncommon variant.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin pelegrinus, a dissimilated form of Latin peregrinus (“foreign; foreigner”).^[5][2][1][6] DEI calls the form Medieval Latin and a word spread by the Church.^[7]

The Latin word is formed from peregrē (“abroad, outside the city”) with the suffix -īnus,^[8][1] and the adverb from per (“beyond, through”) and ager (“field”), literally “through the fields”.^[9][5][10] Nocentini explains that the word first meant someone who came from or went outside Roman territory, and in the Middle Ages someone travelling to Rome, the capital of Christendom.^[5][11]

The first ⟨r⟩ changed to ⟨l⟩ by dissimilation, and the ⟨l⟩ was doubled after the secondary stress, as in pellicano.^[9] Devoto suggests that the form was then analysed as a prefix pe(r)- and a stem *legrinus.^[12] peregrino is the learned form of the same Latin word.^[9][13]

The same dissimilated form gave French pèlerin, Occitan pelerin and Catalan pelegrí.^[5][14] From Medieval Latin it passed into Old High German piligrim, whence German Pilger and English pilgrim, and into Welsh pererin.^[5][14][7] DEI considers the form with ⟨-ll-⟩ a loan in the south, where Sicilian has piḍḍigrinu and Old Neapolitan used pellegrino for “strange” (1452).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Ritmo su Sant'Alessio of the late 12th century, where the saint is called pelegrinu as he wanders the world among the poor: e pelegrinu est clamatu.^[9][6][2] DELI gives it the sense “wayfarer, traveller, especially one who travels to holy or famous places”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The adjective is recorded in Latini, before 1294, in the sense “travelling”, and in Petrarch for “foreign”: che fan qui tante pellegrine spade? (what are so many foreign swords doing here?).^[9][15][13] In the Vita Nuova Dante defines a pilgrim in a broad sense as anyone away from his homeland, and in a narrow sense as one who goes to the shrine of Saint James in Galicia.^[15] Those who go overseas are palmieri, those who go to Rome romei.^[15]

The derivatives followed early: pellegrinaggio “pilgrimage” before 1292, in Bono Giamboni, and pellegrinare “to go on pilgrimage” about 1300.^[9] Luigi Pulci made the pilgrim a jocular name for the louse in the 15th century, and the word is also Florentine in that sense.^[7][16] In the 13th and 14th centuries frati pellegrini were the Dominican preachers who went as missionaries among the heathen.^[17] The short cape called pellegrina is recorded once in the 18th century and spread in the 19th.^[9]

In 1900 Arlìa objected to pellegrinaggio used for a crowd flocking to see something, and Carducci mocked the “National Pilgrimage” with its 75 percent fare reduction.^[9] The literary sense “rare, singular” is shared with peregrino.^[6][13]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Pelegrinu appears in the Ritmo su Sant'Alessio.^[9][2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses pellegrinaggio.^[9]
• Before 1294 – Latini uses the adjective for “travelling”.^[9]
• c. 1300 – Pellegrinare is recorded in an Urbino laud.^[9]
• Before 1374 – Petrarch uses the adjective for “foreign”.^[9]
• 15th century – Luigi Pulci uses the word jokingly for a louse.^[7]
• Before 1767 – Nelli records pellegrina for a short cape.^[9]
• 1883–1884 – Carducci mocks the “National Pilgrimage”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pilgrim, one who makes a pilgrimage to a holy place: Migliaia di pellegrini arrivano ogni estate al santuario.^[6][3][11]
2. (literary) A wayfarer, a traveller, one who wanders far from home.^[6][3][4]
3. (jocular) A louse.^[6][3][13]
4. (zoology) A name for some bivalve molluscs of the family Pectinidae, the scallops.^[6][13]

Adjective

1. Of a pilgrim, like a pilgrim: Boccaccio's in abito pellegrino (in pilgrim's dress).^[6][3][17]
2. Wandering, moving from place to place; of birds, migratory: rondini pellegrine.^[6][13][11]
3. (literary) Foreign, exotic: usanze pellegrine.^[3][13][11]
4. (figurative) Unusual, original, singular; peregrino.^[6][13][1]
5. (zoology) In falco pellegrino, the peregrine falcon.^[6][3][13]

Word family

• pellegrinaggio
• pellegrinare
• pellegrina
• pellegrinamente
• falco pellegrino

Related words

• peregrino
• Latin peregrinus
• French pèlerin
• English pilgrim

Usage notes

Pellegrino is the popular form and peregrino the learned one.^[13] In literature both were used for “foreign” and “rare”.^[13][15] Pellegrino is also a male given name and a surname.^[1] On the spread of the surname Pellegrini DELI refers to De Felice.^[1][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2826
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
11. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 757
17. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)