pioggia

Forms

pioggia f (plural piogge)^[1] Old Italian also wrote ploggia, plogia, ploia, pluia and piogia.^[2][3] A variant piova stands beside it.^[4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *plŏia, from *plovia, which replaced classical Latin pluvia (“rain”).^[2][5][6][1] The vowel was taken from plŏvere, a later form of pluō (“to rain”) that is recorded from Petronius on and lives on in Romance.^[2][5] Meyer-Lübke explains the change the same way: by the rules of Latin the classical noun became *pluia, which the verb then reshaped into the two Vulgar Latin forms; he adds that the details of the sound development are not clear.^[7]

The type without ⟨v⟩ is also French pluie, Occitan ploia, Friulian ploie, Dalmatian pluaia and Romanian ploaie.^[5][7][4] Ibero-Romance kept the classical form: Catalan pluja, Spanish lluvia and Portuguese chuva.^[5][4] The type with ⟨v⟩ survives in the north of Italy, as in Piedmontese pioba.^[7][4] The south mostly says acqua for rain instead, though DEI notes Sicilian forms such as chioggia.^[4]

The Latin noun is the adjective pluvius (“rainy”) used as a noun, short for a phrase meaning rainy weather or rain water.^[1][8] In spoken Latin it soon pushed out the older word for rain, Latin imber: the Vulgate has the new word 67 times against 33 for the old one, which was left only in Sardinian imbre, now apparently gone.^[2] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *plowe- and Proto-Indo-European *pleu- (“to swim, float”), also the source of Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō, “to sail”); the step from floating to raining is a metaphor.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is ploggia in the Sicilian poet Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250: A l'aire claro ò vista plogia dare (“in clear air I have seen rain fall”).^[2][3] The form pioggia is first found in Percivalle Doria, before 1264.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word meant water falling from the clouds in drops, and Dante (1293–1294) already used it for a great quantity of things coming down from above.^[2] Dante's Purgatorio has the rain and wind of the world outside: Or le bagna la pioggia e move il vento (“now the rain soaks them and the wind moves them”).^[10] The sense “a great number” of anything, not only of falling things, is dated by DELI to Tommaseo's dictionary (1871).^[2]

Diminutives appeared over the centuries: pioggetta in Fra Giordano (14th century), pioggiolina in Busini (16th century) and pioggerella in Salvini (before 1729).^[4][2] Pioggia d'oro was the shower of gold into which Jupiter turned to reach Danaë, recorded as piova d'oro in the 14th century.^[4] In the 20th century the word gained technical uses: in cinema, the streaks seen on a worn film, and the phrases pioggia acida and pioggia radioattiva.^[6][11][3]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini writes plogia “rain”.^[2][3]
• Before 1264 – The form pioggia appears in Percivalle Doria.^[2]
• 1293–1294 – Dante uses the word for a mass of things falling from above.^[2]
• 14th century – Pioggetta is used by Fra Giordano, and piova d'oro names the shower of gold of the Danaë myth.^[4]
• 16th century – Pioggiolina is recorded in Busini.^[4]
• Before 1729 – Pioggerella appears in Anton Maria Salvini.^[2][5]
• 1871 – Tommaseo's dictionary records the sense “a great number”.^[2]
• 1983 – Pioggia acida appears in the Corriere della Sera.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. rain: water from the clouds that falls to the ground in drops: Ci siamo riparati dalla pioggia sotto un portico.^{[6][12][11][1]}
2. (by extension) A shower of things falling from above together or one after another: una pioggia di petali.^[6][11][13]
3. (figurative) A great quantity, an unbroken run of something: una pioggia di telefonate.^[6][11][1]
4. (cinema) Streaks seen when an old or scratched film is projected.^[6][11][14]

Word family

• pioggerella
• pioggiolina
• antipioggia
• pioggioso

Related words

• piovoso
• piovere
• piovigginare
• pioviggine
• piova
• piovano
• piovasco
• Latin pluvia
• French pluie

Usage notes

A pioggia means “in a spray” (irrigazione a pioggia, sprinkler irrigation) and, figuratively, “spread around without any plan”, of funds or measures handed out indiscriminately.^[12][13][14] Fare la pioggia e il bel tempo means to lay down the law somewhere.^[14][6] The GDLI also has a rare old pioggia “slope”, a variant of piaggia.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2932
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 397