pietra

Forms

pietra f (plural pietre)^[1] The oldest Italian form is Old Italian piera, in Uguccione da Lodi.^[2] Old and literary forms include Old Italian petra, Old Italian preta, Old Italian preda and Old Italian prea.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pĕtra (“rock, stone”),^[2][6][7][1] itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock, stone”).^[2][6][8][1] The Greek word is of uncertain origin;^[7][9][3] DEI calls it an Aegean relic word.^[7][9][3] In Latin it took the place of saxum (“rock”) in many Romance areas,^[9] and it is pan-Romance: French pierre, Occitan peira, Catalan pedra, Spanish piedra, Portuguese pedra, Sardinian pedra, Romansh peidra, Friulian piere, Dalmatian pira and Romanian piatră.^[6][10][11]

The diphthong /jɛ/ is the regular Tuscan outcome of a stressed open /ɛ/ in an open syllable.^[12] Many Italian dialects, Tuscan ones among them, have forms without it such as preta and preda.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is piera in Uguccione da Lodi, at the beginning of the 13th century, and pietra itself in the Novellino, late in the century, in the sense “broken rock used for building or ornament”.^[2] GRADIT dates the word to about 1250, and Sabatini–Coletti records petra as early as the 10th century.^[7][12] The Florentine poet Monte Andrea writes Molt'è fol chi trar crede aqua di petra!, “He is a great fool who thinks he can draw water from a stone!”^[3]

Semantic evolution

Several phrases come from the Bible: pietra dello scandalo renders the stone of stumbling of Isaiah 8:14, taken up by Paul and Peter, and scagliare la prima pietra comes from the Gospel story of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:7).^[2] Medieval and later science named many minerals and rocks with pietra and a qualifier, such as the pietra filosofale of the alchemists, pietra focaia (flint) and pietra serena, a grey-blue sandstone of the northern Apennines used in building.^[5][13][9]

The word also came to mean a gravestone, a stone in the bladder or kidney, and a caustic stick of silver nitrate.^[7] In place names it means “mountain, rock, crag”, as in Pietraligure and Pietramala.^[12] Derivatives include pietraia (Dante, before 1321), pietroso, and pietrisco, recorded as Medieval Latin petrisclum at Castelfiorentino in 1305 and in Italian in 1826;^[2] pietrina, the flint of a lighter, dates from 1934.^[2] In 2006 pietra is recorded for the stone of curling.^[3]

Timeline

• 10th century – Petra is recorded.^[12]
• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi writes piera.^[2]
• Late 13th century – Pietra appears in the Novellino.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses petraia for a heap of stones.^[2]
• 1305 – Medieval Latin petrisclum is recorded at Castelfiorentino.^[2]
• 1550 – Vasari uses pietrificare.^[2]
• 1826 – Pietrisco “crushed stone” is recorded.^[2]
• 1934 – Pietrina “lighter flint” is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. stone, compact rock as a material for building and decoration: Le case del borgo sono tutte costruite in pietra grigia.^{[7][4][12][1]}
2. A stone, a piece of rock of any size: Il ragazzo raccolse una pietra piatta e la fece rimbalzare sull'acqua.^[7][4][12]
3. (mineralogy) With a qualifier, a kind of rock or mineral: pietra preziosa (gemstone), pietra focaia (flint), pietra pomice (pumice).^[14][5][13]
4. A gravestone, the slab that closes a tomb.^[7][5]
5. (medicine) A calculus, a stone.^[7]
6. (medicine) A caustic stick, especially of silver nitrate.^[7][13]
7. (sport) In curling, the stone.^[3]

Word family

• pietraia
• pietrame
• pietrificare
• pietrina
• pietrisco
• pietroso
• impietrire

Related words

• sasso
• petrolio
• Latin petra
• French pierre

Usage notes

Common figurative phrases are cuore di pietra, a hard, pitiless heart, metterci una pietra sopra, to put something behind one, la prima pietra, the foundation stone of a building or an enterprise, and pietra angolare, a cornerstone.^[5][4][13] DEI also records an old Calabrian coin called pietra, from Medieval Latin petrus (1456), a coin with the image of Saint Peter, and a Florentine pietra meaning beef or veal kidney.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2911
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli