perca

Forms

perca f (plural perche)^[1] The old plural is perce, found in the 15th-century translations of Pliny by Giovanni Brancati and Cristoforo Landino.^[2] Tommaseo–Bellini also records the form perchia.^[3] Körting gives Neapolitan perchia for Naples.^[4]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin perca (“perch”), which Latin took from Ancient Greek πέρκη (pérkē, “perch”).^{[5][6][7][1][8]} Devoto–Oli, GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti take it more precisely from the scientific Latin genus name “Perca”, itself the classical word.^[9][10][11]

The Latin word lived on in French perche, recorded from the 13th century, and in Venetian dialect names of other fishes, such as eastern Venetian pèrega for the comber and Venetian sperga for a wrasse.^[6][12] Meyer-Lübke adds Tuscan ⟨perca⟩, a southern French form and Portuguese perca.^[12] The Latin word was also borrowed as Serbo-Croatian pierka.^[6]

Nocentini connects the Greek name with περκνός (perknós, “dark, livid”), from the same root,^[5] and Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *perḱ- (“spotted, speckled”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini, GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti date the word to the 15th century;^[5][10][11] GDLI's earliest examples are in the Pliny translations of Brancati and Landino, which list “le perce” among the fishes that live among rocks.^[2] DEI's first record is in Alessandro Citolini, in the 16th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Citolini's Tipocosmia counts the perca among the flat fishes, and the Italian translation of the Spectacle de la nature describes it as a river fish a foot or a foot and a half long, whose scales stick so firmly to the flesh that cooks have trouble removing them.^[2][3] Tommaseo–Bellini marks the word as obsolete and refers to persico, the everyday name of the fish.^[3]

In modern Italian perca is a term of zoology, the name of the genus of the European perch and the American yellow perch, while the fish itself is usually called pesce persico.^[10][11][7]

Timeline

• 15th century – The Pliny translations of Brancati and Landino use the plural perce.^[2][5]
• 16th century – Alessandro Citolini lists the perca among the fishes.^[6][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) perch, a freshwater fish of the genus Perca, especially the European perch.^[10][1][13]
2. (zoology, capitalized) The genus of the family Percidae that includes the European perch and the American yellow perch.^[10][11][9]

Word family

• percide

Related words

• persico
• Latin perca
• French perche

Usage notes

An Old Italian perca meaning “pole” is a shortened form of pertica, influenced by French perche: a poem in GDLI compares the lover to a hawk set on a perca.^[2] In central Sardinian and Logudorese pèrca means a cave or a crack between rocks;^[14] Cortelazzo and Marcato derive it from Latin *specula, a diminutive of specus “cave”.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2845
7. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ 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
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 d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET