pipistrello

Forms

pipistrello m (plural pipistrelli)^[1] Old Italian forms include vipistrello, vispistrello, vilpistrello and vispristello.^[2][1] An old literary form is pipastrello.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *vespertillum, a diminutive form standing for classical Latin vespertilio (“bat”).^[4][1][2] DELI and GRADIT start directly from the nominative vespertilio, and Devoto from a Vulgar Latin diminutive *vespertellus.^[5][6][7] The Latin word is formed on vesper (“evening”) because the bat is a creature of the evening.^[5][4] Nocentini sees an adjective *vespertilis (“appearing in the evening”) between them, and the OLD suggests that the ending was influenced by papilio (“butterfly”) and similar words.^[4][8]

The old forms Old Italian vipistrello and vispistrello show the change of the Latin sounds; the modern form has /p/ for /v/ at the start by assimilation to the following /p/.^[1][9][3] GRADIT, the GDLI and Devoto think that a series of imitative syllables for the rustle of the bat's flight or its cry helped the change.^[6][7][3]

Few names vary as much in the dialects: Venetian barbastrigo, Neapolitan spurtilune, Florentine pripistello, Lucchese pilistrello and Emilian palpastrel are some of the forms Meyer-Lübke lists, reshaped by popular etymology after Latin pellis (“skin”), barba (“beard”), spiritus (“spirit”), strix (“screech owl”) and vulpes (“fox”).^[10][11] Nocentini puts the variation down to taboo as well as popular etymology.^[4] The oblique stem vespertilionem survives in the south, in Lucanian spurtigghione and Campanian spurtiglione, and many dialects use instead a word of the type nottola.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is pinestrello in the Tuscan bestiary of about 1300, for the bat;^[5] Dante has vispistrello before 1321 and Boccaccio pipistrello in 1341–42.^[5] The TLIO's first record is in Giordano da Pisa's sermons of 1309, from Pisa, in the same sense of the dark nocturnal flying mammal.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante's devils in the Inferno have wings without feathers, made in the manner of a bat's: Non avean penne, ma di vispistrello / Era lor modo.^[12] By the 19th century pipistrello was also the name of a man's sleeveless overcoat with a short cape falling over the shoulders like a bat's wings;^[5][6] Tommaseo–Bellini wrote in 1871 that it was going out of use.^[5][6] DEI treats this coat as a separate entry.^[11]

French borrowed the word as French pipistrelle (1760), and English took pipistrelle from French.^[13] It also gave the scientific Latin genus name Pipistrellus.^[1][3]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – Pinestrello appears in the Tuscan bestiary.^[5]
• 1309 – Giordano da Pisa uses the word in his sermons.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses vispistrello.^[5]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses the form pipistrello.^[5]
• 1760 – French pipistrelle is first recorded.^[13]
• 1771 – English pipistrel is recorded.^[11]
• 1871 – Tommaseo–Bellini describes the pipistrello overcoat.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. bat, a nocturnal flying mammal like a mouse with membranous wings.^[6][12][14]
2. (zoology) A bat of the genus Pipistrellus, the pipistrelle.^[6]
3. (historical) A sleeveless man's overcoat with a cape reaching the elbows, worn in the 19th century.^[6][12][14]
4. (figurative) A person dressed in long black clothes, or of gloomy and awkward looks.^[6]
5. pipistrello marino (zoology): the batfish Platax.^[12]

Word family

• pipistrellesco

Related words

• vespertilio
• vespro
• French pipistrelle

Usage notes

GRADIT lists manica a pipistrello among the phrases with the word.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 537
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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 d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2939
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse