pettine

Forms

pettine m (plural pettini)^[1] Old Italian forms include pectine, petine, pettene, piectene and the northern peten.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pecten (“comb”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin noun belongs to the verb pectō (“to comb”).^[4][6] GRADIT and the GDLI derive the verb from Ancient Greek πεκτέω (pektéō, “I comb”), while de Vaan and Nocentini treat it as a native Latin verb with Greek cognates.^[5][7][6][4]

The word is found across the Romance languages: Romanian pieptene, Dalmatian piakno, Friulian pietin, Old French pigne (modern French peigne, whose vowel comes from the verb peigner), Occitan penche, Catalan pinta, Spanish peine, Portuguese pente and Sardinian pèttene.^[4][8][9]

De Vaan reconstructs the noun as Proto-Italic *petken-, beside a verb *petke-, and further back as Proto-Indo-European *p(e)tḱ-en-.^[6] He finds attractive Pinault's view that a reduplicated verb *pe-pḱ- was dissimilated to *petḱ-, which suits the repeated action of combing.^[6] Related words are Ancient Greek πέκω (pékō, “to comb, shear”), κτείς (kteís, “comb”) and Lithuanian pèšti (“to pluck”).^[6][4] Nocentini connects the root Proto-Indo-European *pek- with the fleece of sheep, as in Ancient Greek πόκος (pókos, “fleece”) and Old High German fahs (“hair”).^[4]

The shellfish sense goes back to Latin, where the noun named a shell as well as a comb, probably as a semantic calque on the Greek word for a comb, which also had both senses.^[3][9] The name refers to the fluted valve of the shell, which looks like a comb.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the plural pectini in the Dichiarazione di Paxia, a Savona document of 1178–1182, where it means combs for the hair.^[3][2] The TLIO describes the early comb as a tool of bone, wood or ivory with a straight back and teeth of varying thickness.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for a comb to groom an animal's coat, a toothed tool to clean and straighten textile fibres, an ornamental comb to hold headdresses, a rake and a plectrum.^[2] In weaving it named the reed of the loom, which divides the warp threads, as in the Sienese wool statutes of 1298–1309.^[3][2] Medical texts used it for the bones of the hand and foot between the wrist or ankle and the toes, and pettini di ferro were iron combs used in torture.^[2][10] Boccaccio's Decameron has an ivory comb (un pettine d'avorio) among small gifts.^[10]

The shellfish name appears in Cristoforo Landino in 1476 and in Redi in the 17th century; naturalists then took the Latin pecten as the name of a genus.^[3][11][10] The plant name pettine di Venere (1544, Mattioli) translates the Latin pecten Veneris of Pliny.^[11] Later technical senses include the iron ornament on the prow of a Venetian gondola, whose six teeth stand for the six districts of Venice, and a marking at the edge of an airport runway.^[5][12]

The proverb tutti i nodi vengono al pettine, literally “all the knots come to the comb”, means that wrongdoing is found out in the end, or that put-off problems must be faced.^[13][12]

Timeline

• 1178–1182 – The plural pectini is recorded in a Savona document.^[3][2]
• 1298–1309 – The Sienese wool statutes use pettine for the reed of the loom.^[3]
• 1476 – Cristoforo Landino uses the word for a bivalve shellfish.^[3]
• 1544 – Mattioli records the plant name pettine di Venere.^[11]
• 17th century – Redi uses pettine for the shell.^[11][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A comb, a row of teeth fixed to a back that serves as a handle, used to tidy and style the hair: Ha sempre un pettine nella tasca della giacca.^[5][15][16]
2. A curved ornamental comb with few, long teeth, used to hold a woman's hair in place.^[5][12][13]
3. (weaving) The reed of a loom, a frame of parallel strips that divides the warp threads and presses the weft.^[5][15][12]
4. (textiles) A toothed device that combs textile fibres before spinning.^[5][16][13]
5. (zoology) A scallop, a bivalve mollusc with a rounded ribbed shell, one valve convex and the other flat.^[12][1]
6. (nautical) The toothed iron ornament on the prow of a Venetian gondola.^[5][15][12]
7. (music) A plectrum (plettro).^[12][17]
8. (aviation) A large painted marking that shows the usable landing area of a runway.^[5][16]
9. (skiing) In slalom, a series of closed gates set one after another.^[16]

Word family

• pettinare
• pettinatura
• pettinata
• pettinato
• pettinatrice
• pettinino
• pettinina
• pettinella
• pettiniera
• pettinaio
• pettinaccia

Related words

• pettignone
• Latin pecten
• French peigne

Usage notes

A pettine describes things set side by side like the teeth of a comb, as in parcheggio a pettine, parking with the cars parallel to each other and at an angle to the kerb.^[12][13] In colloquial use del pettine means worthless or very bad.^[15] A pettine fitto is a fine-toothed comb.^[12][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2885
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 767
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli