Etymologically
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pesce

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpeʃ.ʃe/[1]

Forms

pesce m (plural pesci, diminutive pescétto or (more common) pesciolìno or (uncommon) pesciatèllo, augmentative (slightly augmentative) pesciòtto; pescióne, pejorative pesciàccio, derogatory (uncommon) pesciùccio, diminutive-derogatory (literary) pesciàtto or pesciàttolo)[1] Old forms include Old Italian pescie, Old Italian pescio, northern Old Italian pesse and Old Italian pexe, and southern Old Italian pisci.[2] The popular Tuscan ⟨péscio⟩ is recorded in Giordano da Pisa and Buti.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pĭscis (“fish”), continued from the accusative ⟨piscem⟩.[4][5][6][1] The word is panromance: French poisson, Occitan peis, Catalan peix, Spanish pez, Portuguese peixe, Sardinian pische and Romanian pește.[5][7][8] The French word is a diminutive, and the simple form survives only in compounds such as Old French craspois, literally “fat fish”, a name for the whale.[5][8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *piskis.[9][1] Its only close relatives are in Germanic and Celtic: Old High German fisc, hence German Fisch and English fish, Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍃 (fisks), and Old Irish íasc.[5][9][10] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *pisk- (“fish”) and notes that the vowel of the Celtic form, from *peisk-, is hard to reconcile with it.[9] Nocentini mentions the possibility that the word is a derivative of the root *ap- (“water”) with zero grade, meaning “the aquatic one”.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the form pescie in the contrasto of Cielo d'Alcamo (1231–1250), for the backboned water animal with fins, gills and usually scales.[4][6] The TLIO's first quotation is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word in figures of speech: pesce grosso for a person of high rank, più sano che pesce for someone in perfect health, prendere come il pesce all'amo for seducing or deceiving someone, and nuovo pesce for an odd or naive person.[2] In the 13th century Ristoro d'Arezzo used the plural for the last sign of the zodiac, Pisces.[4][2] The TLIO also records pesce del braccio, the biceps, a sense that popular speech keeps.[2][11]

Many names of species are compounds with pesce: pesce spada (swordfish) appears at the end of the 13th century, pesce gatto, pesce martello and pesce sega in 1554, pesce luna in 1628, pesce palla in 1652, pesce rosso (goldfish) in 1792 and pesce pilota in 1836.[5] The compound pescecane (shark) is recorded in 1476 in Cristoforo Landino.[4] Its figurative sense, a war profiteer, was made popular by Dario Niccodemi's comedy I pescicani, first staged in Milan in 1913.[4] The origin of pesce d'aprile (April fool) has not been explained convincingly.[4]

In printing the word has meant, since 1803, an omission made by the compositor, the opposite of a doubled passage.[4][7][11] In vulgar slang it also means the penis.[11][1]

Timeline

  • 1231–1250 – Cielo d'Alcamo uses the form pescie.[4]
  • 13th century – Ristoro d'Arezzo uses the plural for the zodiac sign Pisces.[4]
  • Late 13th century – Pesce spada is first recorded.[5]
  • 1476 – Cristoforo Landino uses pescecane.[4]
  • 1554 – Pesce gatto, pesce martello and pesce sega are first recorded.[5]
  • 1792 – Pesce rosso is first recorded.[5]
  • 1803 – D'Alberti records the printing sense, an omission in typesetting.[4]
  • 1913 – Niccodemi's comedy I pescicani spreads the sense “war profiteer”.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A fish: an animal with a backbone that lives in water, breathes through gills and swims with fins: Nello stagno nuotavano pesci di ogni colore.[6][12][11]
  2. Fish as food, raw or cooked (usually singular): Il venerdì a casa nostra si mangia pesce.[6][11][13]
  3. (figurative) A naive, gullible person.[6]
  4. Pesci (plural, capitalised): Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac.[6][4]
  5. (printing) An omission of a word or line made in typesetting.[11][4]
  6. (popular) The biceps.[11]
  7. (vulgar, slang) The penis.[11][1]

Word family

  • pescaggio
  • pescaia
  • pescare
  • pescata
  • pescatore
  • pescecane
  • peschereccio
  • pescheria
  • peschiera
  • pesciaiola
  • pesciaiolo
  • pesciera
  • pesciolino
  • pescivendolo
  • pescetto
  • pescoso
  • piscina
  • Latin piscis

Usage notes

Many set phrases use the word: muto come un pesce (silent as a fish), sano come un pesce (in excellent health), sentirsi come un pesce fuor d'acqua (to feel out of place), non sapere che pesci prendere (not to know what to do), né carne né pesce (neither one thing nor the other) and fare il pesce in barile (to play dumb so as not to take sides).[6][13][12]

The GDLI records a separate old and regional pesce meaning the Norway spruce, a variant of peccio.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 764
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
  8. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  9. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ 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
  13. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  14. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 164