pino

Forms

pino m (plural pini)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pīnus (“pine tree”).^[2][3][4][1] The word is pan-Romance: French pin (from which comes the English word pine), Occitan pi, Catalan pi, Spanish pino, dialectal Portuguese pinho, Sardinian pinu and Romanian pin.^[3][5][6] Latin also passed it to the Celtic languages, Irish pion and Welsh pinwydd.^[7]

The Latin word has no agreed origin.^[8][1] It is compared with Ancient Greek πίτυς (pítus, “pine”), Albanian pishë (“pine”) and a Sanskrit compound naming a resinous tree.^[3][7][8] Nocentini sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *pī-, beside *spī-, for pointed things, so that the tree would be named after its needles, the root of spiga and spina as well.^[3] De Vaan lists several possibilities: a link with πίναξ (pínax, “wooden board”), the root of the Greek word, a non-Indo-European tree name, or an older consonant cluster that would connect it with Latin pix (“pitch, resin”), which he finds attractive, since pines are known for their resin.^[8] Wiktionary derives it ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *poi- (“sap, juice”), and compares Sanskrit पितु (pitu, “sap, juice, resin”).^[1]

The derivatives pinastro and pineta came into Italian as learned words, from pinaster and pinetum.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the word to 1282, and DELI's first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, in the sense of the evergreen conifer with needle-shaped leaves in bundles of two to five and a cone for fruit.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

As in Latin poetry, where pinus could stand for a ship or a torch, literary Italian used pino for a ship (Annibal Caro, before 1566, Varchi in the 16th century), for a torch (Bernardo Tasso) and for a crown of pine leaves (Caro).^[2][7] Foscolo's Sepolcri (1806) has it for a ship's mast: la trionfata nave / del maggior pino.^[2][10]

Names of species changed with botany: pino silvestre, from Linnaeus's Pinus silvestris, only recently replaced pino selvatico and a set of local names such as pino di Scozia, pino bianco and pino da fastella.^[2] The seed was called pinocchio in Florence; after 1881 that word became bound to Collodi's puppet, and pinolo took its place in the standard language.^[2] In the 20th century the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb, like the cloud of an erupting volcano, was called a pino after the shape of the umbrella pine.^[7][10]

Timeline

• 1282 – Pino is first recorded.^[9]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses pino for the tree.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses pineta “pine wood”.^[2]
• c. 1350 – Pinocchio “pine nut” appears in a translation of Crescenzi.^[2]
• 1489 – Pinastro “maritime pine” appears in Landino's translation of Pliny.^[2]
• Before 1566 – Annibal Caro uses pino for a ship.^[2]
• 1806 – Foscolo uses pino for a ship's mast.^[2]
• 20th century – Pino names the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) A pine: an evergreen, resinous conifer of the genus Pinus, with needle-shaped leaves and woody cones holding the seeds, some of them edible; as in pino domestico (the stone pine), pino marittimo and pino silvestre (the Scots pine).^{[4][11][12][1]}
2. The wood of the pine, used for furniture and building: una cassapanca di pino.^[4][10][1]
3. (botany, capitalised) Pino, the genus of the pines.^[4][10]
4. (literary) The mast of a ship; by extension, a ship.^[4][10][9]
5. (literary, obsolete) A torch of pinewood.^[4][9][12]
6. In pino vulcanico, the umbrella-shaped cloud of gas, ash and vapour above an erupting volcano or a nuclear explosion.^[10][9]

Word family

• pineta
• pinastro
• pineto
• pinaia
• pinacea
• pinaccio

Related words

• pigna
• pinene
• pinifero
• pinolo
• pinocchio
• Latin pinus
• French pin

Usage notes

Pino is also a man's name, a short form of Giuseppino or Peppino (from Giuseppe), with the feminine Pina.^[1] An unrelated old adjective pino is a contracted form of pieno (“full”), used by Dante in his lyric poems (una virtù d'amor sì pina).^[13][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2929
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ 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 Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 499