Etymologically
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pillola

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpil.lo.la/[1]

Forms

pillola f (plural pillole, relational adjective pillolare)[1] Old forms include Old Italian pillule, Old Italian pilola and Old Italian pirola.[2] The Tuscan form pillora arose by dissimilation.[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pilula (“little ball, pellet”), a learned word; the Latin was also spelled pillula, a diminutive of pila (“ball”).[5][6][7][1] Devoto explains the ⟨ll⟩ by crossing with palla.[8] Popular outcomes of the Latin word appear in the dialects, such as Venetian pirola, Friulian pirule and Sicilian pinula.[9] The same Latin word gave French pilule and Spanish píldora, and through Medieval Latin German Pille and English pill.[6][10]

DELI calls the origin of the base word uncertain.[5][4] Nocentini thinks it is probably a collective of Latin pilus (“hair”), meaning a tangle or ball of hair, and Wiktionary notes that Roman balls were stuffed with hair.[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1286–1290, dated 1288.[2] DELI gives Zucchero Bencivenni (1310), who in a medical text warns against a medicine “of coarse substance, as pills are”.[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for a small fruit or berry, such as the cypress cone, and for a small ornament or trinket.[2][11] Tuscan pillora and pilloro could mean a large river pebble, a sense recorded in Targioni Tozzetti in 1751.[11][12]

The phrase indorare la pillola, “to gild the pill”, comes from the apothecaries' custom of wrapping pills in gold leaf to make them easier to take, described in an Italian translation of Lémery's pharmacopoeia (1720).[5] DELI thinks it came from French dorer la pilule, recorded from Molière in 1668, while DEI cites a Medieval Latin pilula aurea of the 14th century.[5][11] From 1967 la pillola is the contraceptive pill.[5] Later uses include in pillole, “in small doses, in summary form”, and the joking sense “bullet”.[7][13][4]

Timeline

  • 1288 – A Florentine document records pillola.[2]
  • 1310 – Zucchero Bencivenni uses it in a medical text.[5]
  • 1668 – Molière uses French dorer la pilule.[5]
  • 1720 – A translated pharmacopoeia describes gilded pills.[5]
  • 1751 – Targioni Tozzetti uses pillola for a river pebble.[11]
  • 1967 – La pillola is recorded for the contraceptive pill.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. pill: a small rounded medicine to be swallowed whole: Deve prendere una pillola dopo i pasti.[7][13][14]
  2. (with the article) The contraceptive pill.[7][13][4]
  3. (figurative) Something unpleasant that has to be accepted: una pillola amara.[7][4][14]
  4. (figurative) A small, concentrated dose of a subject; a short piece of advice: pillole di storia.[13][4]
  5. (uncommon) A river pebble.[7][15]
  6. (jocular) A bullet.[7][15][4]

Word family

  • pillolame
  • pillolario
  • pilloliera
  • pilloliere
  • pillolare
  • pillolo
  • pillorata
  • pilloro
  • pasticca
  • palla
  • pallottola
  • Latin pila
  • English pill

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include indorare la pillola, to soften bad news, ingoiare la pillola, to accept something unpleasant, in pillole, in small doses or in summary, and pillola del giorno dopo, the morning-after pill.[7][4][14]

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 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 e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  11. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2921
  12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
  13. ^ 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
  14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse