piaga

Forms

piaga f (plural piaghe)^[1] Old Italian also wrote plaga.^[2] Sicilian and Calabrian have chiaga;^[3] Calabrian chiaja and caja were rebuilt on the plural caji.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plāga (“blow, stroke; wound”).^[4][5][6][1] The Latin word first meant “blow” and then “wound”;^[4][5] Late Latin formed from it plāgō (“to strike, wound”), the source of piagare.^[4][5] The same word is French plaie, Occitan plaga, Spanish llaga, Portuguese chaga, Logudorese piae and Romanian plagă.^[5][7][1]

DELI, DEI, GRADIT and Treccani take the Latin word as an early loan from Doric πλαγά (plagá, “blow”), the Attic πληγή (plēgḗ).^[4][3][6][8] Nocentini prefers a native derivative of plangō (“to strike”), the source of piangere.^[5] De Vaan puts both under one Proto-Italic family, Proto-Italic *plāgā beside the verb “to hit”, from Proto-Indo-European *pl(e)h₂g-h₂-; the verb's sense “to mourn” comes from beating one's breast.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is a 13th-century Italian version of the Pamphilus, with the sense “lesion with loss of tissue that is slow to heal”.^[4] There a woman complains of wounds given to her: queste plage a mi (“these wounds on me”).^[2] Zingarelli dates the word to 1268.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses came early: “scourge, social evil” in a 13th-century Veronese lauda and “affliction” in Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294.^[4] In Dante's Inferno the poet sees on the limbs of the damned piaghe … ricenti e vecchie, “wounds new and old”.^[2] DEI also records an old sense “blow” in Chiabrera (17th century).^[3] The plagues of Egypt are le piaghe d'Egitto;^[11][12] in Church Latin plāga meant a divine punishment, and in that sense the word passed into English plague.^[5][1] The colloquial sense “tiresome, whining person” is recorded in Tuscany in 1863.^[4]

Idioms include mettere il dito nella piaga, to touch a sore point, and riaprire una piaga, to revive a painful memory.^[10][12]

Timeline

• 13th century – An Italian version of the Pamphilus has plage “wounds”.^[4][2]
• 13th century – A Veronese lauda uses it for a scourge.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for an affliction.^[4]
• 17th century – Chiabrera uses it for a blow.^[3]
• 1863 – Fanfani records the sense “tiresome person” in Tuscan.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) A sore, an ulcer: a lesion of the skin or a mucous membrane that heals slowly.^[6][11][10]
2. (literary) A wound.^[13][8]
3. (figurative) A deep, inconsolable grief: La morte del fratello fu per lei una piaga mai guarita..^[6][11][14]
4. (figurative) A widespread social evil: la piaga del lavoro nero.^[6][14][10]
5. A scourge, calamity: le piaghe d'Egitto.^[6][11][12]
6. (figurative, humorous) A tiresome person who complains all the time: Non fare la piaga, siamo quasi arrivati.^[6][11][10]

Word family

• piagare
• impiagare
• piagoso

Related words

• piangere
• Latin plaga
• English plague

Usage notes

GRADIT has a second, obsolete and literary piaga, a variant of plaga “region, tract”.^[6][15] Piaga da decubito is a bedsore.^[6][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 253
3. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2891
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 256