picchio

Forms

picchio m (plural picchi)^[1] Old Italian also wrote pichio and picu.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pīculus (“little woodpecker”), a diminutive of Latin pīcus (“woodpecker”), whose origin DELI calls uncertain.^[3][4][5] Nocentini writes the base as *pīcculus with a double consonant, and Wiktionary starts from *pīccus, with the form shaped by picchiare (“to knock, strike”).^[6][1] Treccani allows both routes: the simple Latin noun drawn towards the verb, or a diminutive.^[7] The GDLI also sees the verb's influence on the form.^[8]

Elsewhere in Romance the bird is French pic, Occitan pic and Spanish pico, which Nocentini traces to that unattested variant with ⟨-cc-⟩.^[6][5] French also has the compounds pivert (“green woodpecker”) and pimart (“black woodpecker”).^[5]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *pikos and Proto-Indo-European *(s)peyk- (“woodpecker; magpie”), the source also of Latin pīca (“magpie”).^[1][9] Its cognates are Sanskrit पिक (piká, “cuckoo”), Old High German speht (modern German Specht) and Old Norse spætr.^[9][6] Nocentini connects it with a root meaning “to prick, peck”, and de Vaan notes that the words may imitate the bird's shrill call; the long vowel of the Latin noun may have been taken over from the word for the magpie, since the other languages point to a short one.^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni's translation of the Tesoro of Brunetto Latini, before 1292: “Picchio è uno uccello della grandezza della ghiandaia” (the woodpecker is a bird the size of a jay), which goes on to describe how it bores a hole in a tree with its strong beak to nest.^{[3][2][8][10]}

Semantic evolution

Old Italian texts already know the woodpecker's habit of hammering at bark.^[2] The bird was linked with the Latin god Picus, pictured with a woodpecker on his head: Guido da Pisa tells how Circe turned Pico into a woodpecker because he refused her.^[11][8] Boccaccio's Decameron speaks of a wall so sheer that not even woodpeckers could have clung to it.^[10][8]

Diminutives such as picchiarello (17th century, Oudin), picchietto (1871) and Tuscan picchiarino (1886) followed, and the name was given to individual species: picchio verde, picchio nero, picchio rosso maggiore.^[12][10][13] Picchio cardinale, a name of the Tuscan Maremma and Lazio (1886), is the picchio rosso for DEI, while Tommaseo gives it to the green woodpecker.^[12][10] Today the word names the woodpeckers and, in picchio muratore and picchio muraiolo, two passerine birds, the nuthatch and the wallcreeper.^[7][4]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni's Tesoro gives the first record of picchio.^[3][2]
• 17th century – Oudin records the diminutive picchiarello.^[12]
• 1871 – The diminutive picchietto is recorded.^[12]
• 1886 – Tuscan picchiarino and picchio cardinale are recorded.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) woodpecker: any of several birds of the family Picidae with a strong straight beak, used to bore into bark and wood after insect larvae, and a long tongue: Nel bosco si sentiva un picchio battere sul tronco.^[4][13][7]
2. In picchio muratore and picchio muraiolo: the nuthatch and the wallcreeper, small passerine birds.^[7][4][14]

Word family

• picchietto
• picchiotto
• picchiaccio
• picchiarino

Related words

• picchiare
• pica
• Latin pīcus
• French pic

Usage notes

A separate word picchio “knock, blow; the sound of a blow” was formed from the verb picchiare and is recorded from before 1470; it survives in phrases such as di picchio “suddenly” and, figuratively, avere un picchio “to suffer a setback”.^[4][15][7] With the stress on the i, picchìo (plural picchii) is a continuous knocking (1879).^[4][7] In Roman dialect picchio is also a spinning top.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f 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 e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 345
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. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 772
12. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2901
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli