perla

Forms

perla f (plural perle)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian perle, Old Italian perlla and, at Siena, Old Italian pierla.^[2][3]

Etymology

The origin of the word is disputed.^[4][5][2] On the usual explanation it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pernula, a diminutive of Latin perna (“ham; a kind of shellfish”).^[3][6][7][8] The Latin word for the ham was transferred, for the likeness of shape, to the pearl-bearing shellfish, and the diminutive then named its contents by metonymy.^[3][7] In the south the Latin word itself still means “pearl”: Neapolitan perna, Sicilian perna.^[3][9][10]

Nocentini notes the difficulties of form: the diminutive is not recorded, and the Old Sienese form Old Italian pierla of the early 14th century has a diphthong that presupposes an open syllable, while the stressed vowel of *pernula stood in a closed one.^[3] He concludes that a diphthong before /r/ plus a consonant must be admitted, as in postierla.^[3] Castellani, writing in 1967–70, proposed instead Latin pērula (“small bag”), a diminutive of pēra (“bag, wallet”): a sailors' metaphor for the precious load of the shell, or an allusion to pearls worn as earrings, hanging from the ears like little bags; the short vowel would come from the shortening of stressed vowels in words stressed on the third-last syllable, or from the influence of perna.^[4][11] Nocentini rejects this as unmotivated in meaning and difficult in form, because of the long vowel of pērula.^[3] The TLIO leaves both explanations open.^[2]

Meyer-Lübke took the Italian word as the source of French perle, Occitan perla, Catalan perla, Spanish perla and Portuguese pérola,^[9] and the GDLI also derives the French word, recorded about 1100, from Italian.^[12] Nocentini instead treats the French, Occitan and Catalan words as parallel forms and derives only the Spanish and Portuguese ones from them.^[3]

Latin perna meant the upper leg or thigh.^[13] De Vaan traces it to Proto-Italic *persnā and to a word for the heel, Proto-Indo-European *tspērsn-h₂-, with cognates such as Ancient Greek πτέρνη (ptérnē, “heel”); the meaning shifted from the heel to the haunch in Latin.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Venetian pact with Aleppo of 1207–1208.^[2] DELI's first example, from the poet Mostacci in the first half of the 13th century, has the sense of the small, mostly pale and lustrous globe that forms inside certain shellfish, above all the pearl oyster, and is prized as an ornament.^[4] In Old Italian the pearl was also credited with uses in medicine.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the word named a white colour with iridescent tints, a person or a personified place of outstanding beauty or virtue, and, in the plural, the teeth.^[2] Petrarch describes a woman's “blond tresses, which were like burnished gold and pearls to see that day” (le trecce bionde, / ch’oro forbito e perle / eran quel dì a vederle).^[11][7] Boccaccio used the word for anything with the shape or colour of a pearl, or as beautiful and precious as one.^[4] From the end of the 16th century it is recorded for a person of excellent qualities.^[4]

Later senses follow the shape: a small capsule of hardened gelatine holding a medicine (1871), a glass bead used in chemistry to identify elements, and a bead-shaped ornament in architecture.^[4][5][11] As an invariable adjective after a noun it names a milky, opalescent colour, above all in grigio perla “pearl grey” (1840).^[4] Used jokingly or ironically, perla is a gross blunder in speaking or writing;^[5][14] the jocular perla giapponese has the same sense,^[7][8] the Japanese pearl being so called because the technique of cultivating pearls arose in Japan.^[4] The old augmentative perlone also meant a fop.^[10] The verb imperlare “to adorn with pearls” (before 1374) later also meant “to sprinkle with droplets” (1626).^[3]

French has the word for a pearl from 1140, for an excellent person from 1532 and for the teeth from 1552.^[15]

Timeline

• 1207–1208 – The word appears in a Venetian pact with Aleppo.^[2]
• First half of the 13th century – Mostacci uses perla for the pearl.^[4]
• Before 1374 – Imperlare “to adorn with pearls” is recorded.^[3]
• Before 1375 – Boccaccio uses the word for anything shaped like a pearl or as precious as one.^[4]
• Before 1598 – D. Borghesi calls an excellent person a perla.^[4]
• 1664 – Redi uses perlato “adorned with pearls”.^[4]
• 1804 – The diminutive perlina is recorded.^[4][3]
• 1840 – Grigio perla appears in the Milanese press.^[4]
• 1871 – Tommaseo–Bellini records perla for a gelatine capsule of medicine.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pearl: a rounded concretion, chiefly of nacre, formed around a foreign body in the mantle of certain bivalve molluscs and prized in jewellery: una collana di perle coltivate.^[5][6][7]
2. A very pale grey colour.^[5]
3. (figurative) A person of rare goodness or qualities; a city of outstanding beauty: quel medico è una perla;^[5][6][14] Capri, la perla del golfo.^[5][6][14]
4. (jocular, ironic) A howler, a gross blunder: il compito era pieno di perle.^[5][14][11]
5. (literary, plural) Teeth, for their whiteness; drops of dew or rain.^[5][2]
6. A small gelatine capsule holding a medicine, a cosmetic or a scent.^[5][11][8]
7. (chemistry) A glass bead made by melting borax, used to identify certain elements.^[5][11]
8. (architecture) A small rounded ornament, one of a row along a moulding or cornice.^[5][8]
9. (zoology) A stonefly of the genus Perla.^[5][14]

Adjective

1. (invariable, after a noun) Pearl-coloured, milky and opalescent: grigio perla.^[5][11][4]

Word family

• perlina
• perlato
• perlaceo
• perlifero
• perlinato
• imperlare
• perlaio
• perleggiare

Related words

• perno
• Latin perna
• French perle

Usage notes

Gettare le perle ai porci “to cast pearls before swine”, to give something valuable to those unworthy of it, comes from a saying of the Gospel.^[14][16] The dated printing sense, a small type size standardized as 4 point, Wiktionary takes from the French perle, the name Jean Jannon gave to the type of his miniature editions of the 1620s;^[1] French has this sense from 1751.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 762
11. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 50
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana