persica

Forms

persica f (plural persiche)^[1] Old texts also write Old Italian perseca, Old Italian persege and Old Italian perseghe.^[2] The old plural was also persice.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin persica (“peaches”), the neuter plural of persicum (“peach”), which was reinterpreted as a feminine singular.^[4][5][6][7] The Latin word is short for “Persian fruit”, the fruit of Persia.^[5][6][3] The adjective Persicus (“Persian”) is from Ancient Greek Περσικός (Persikós), from the Greek name of Persia.^[5][1]

Like most fruit trees, the peach reached Rome from Asia Minor, and the form that keeps ⟨rs⟩ and so stays transparent lives on in the dialects of central and southern Italy.^[4] Devoto–Oli labels it regional in central and northern Italy instead.^[8] Standard Italian uses pesca, which DELI traces to the same Latin plural.^[5] Wiktionary calls them doublets.^[1]

The Latin word also gave French pêche, Occitan persega, Catalan préssec, Portuguese pêssigo, Sardinian péssighe and Romanian piersecă, and it passed into Middle High German pfersich, modern Pfirsich.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Milanese Volgari of Bonvesin de la Riva, from the last decade of the 13th century, where the word names the fruit of the peach tree (pesco).^[2] Ristoro uses it for a fruit that is sweet outside and bitter inside: e en tale trovamo lo dolce de fore e l’amaro dentro, come la perseca (“and in some we find the sweet outside and the bitter within, like the peach”).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for the tree itself.^[2][3] Caro wrote of persiche and cherries brought from far away that still did well in his soil, and Stigliani used it for a peach stone.^[3] In the cookery book of Maestro Martino persiche are also perch, the fish usually called persico.^[3]

Mattioli's Dioscoride notes that the fruit called persiche is what Tuscans call pesche, and lists many kinds: red, yellow, green, white, clingstone and bitter.^[3] The word stayed in literary use, from Redi and Monti to D'Annunzio's persiche mezze (“overripe peaches”) and Pasolini.^[3] The locution dare meliache per persiche meant to pass off one thing as another, and a Tuscan proverb warned that people used to peaches will come after them with poles.^[3]

Today it is a regional or literary word for the peach.^{[9][10][7][1]} In botany Persica was a genus, now merged into Prunus, to which the common peach tree belonged.^[11][6]

Timeline

• 13th century – the dictionaries date the word to this century.^[6][8][7]
• 1290s – Bonvesin de la Riva uses it in his Milanese Volgari.^[2]
• 14th century – DEI dates the botanical word to this century.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional or literary) A peach, the fruit of the peach tree (pesco): Ha portato un cesto di persiche dall'orto.^{[6][8][7][10][1]}
2. (archaic) The peach tree.^[2][3]
3. (botany) A plant of the former genus Persica, now part of Prunus.^[6][11]

Word family

• persicata
• persichino

Related words

• pesca
• pesco
• persico
• Latin persica

Usage notes

The plural is persiche.^[1][7] The feminine of the adjective persico “Persian” is spelled the same way.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d 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 e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2865