pisciare

Forms

pisciare (first-person singular present pìscio, first-person singular past historic pisciài, past participle pisciàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Old Italian pisare, Old Italian pissare and Old Italian pixare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a word of imitative origin, shared by all the Romance languages.^[4][5][6][7] Wiktionary gives it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *pīssiāre, an echoic verb,^[1] and Meyer-Lübke set up a sound-imitating *pissāre.^[8] Devoto relates it to a series of ⟨ps⟩ sounds imitating a liquid that spurts out.^[9] DEI and GDLI speak of an expressive base ⟨*piss-⟩ found throughout Romance and also in Germanic.^[10][3] The TLIO, citing DEI, derives the Italian verb from French.^[2]

The same word is French pisser, Occitan pissar, Catalan pixar, Romanian pișa and Sardinian pisare.^[5][8] Nocentini holds that the German pissen and the English word piss came from French.^[5] An older derivation through *pistiāre, a variant of Latin pistō (“to pound”), was proposed by Ulrich;^[11] Körting found the change of meaning strange.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first Italian record is in the Memoriali bolognesi of 1282, in the sense “to pass urine”.^[2] Earlier, a surname Piskialoupos is written in Greek letters in Calabria in 1124, and the Medieval Latin of Torcello has pissavit in 1292, of someone who urinated into a well's sponge.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the verb for passing other substances with the urine, contemptuously for giving birth, and for managing to do something.^[2] From 1546–47 (Pietro Nelli) it can mean to write abundantly, and today to say or write too much.^[4][6] Pisciarsi sotto “to wet oneself with fear” is recorded in the 16th century (Firenzuola).^[10]

The noun piscio is recorded from the 14th century and piscia from 1640 (Oudin).^[5][4] Pisciatoio, a urinal, has a Medieval Latin forerunner pisciatorium at Viterbo in 1251, and French pissoir (1489) passed into German.^[4][10] Pisciarello is a light, pale red wine.^[12]

Timeline

• 1124 – The Calabrian surname Piskialoupos is recorded in Greek letters.^[4]
• 1251 – Medieval Latin pisciatorium is recorded at Viterbo.^[4]
• 1282 – The Memoriali bolognesi have the first Italian record of the verb.^[2]
• 1292 – Medieval Latin pissavit is recorded at Torcello.^[4]
• 1546–1547 – Pietro Nelli uses it for writing abundantly.^[4]
• 1640 – The noun piscia appears in Oudin.^[4]
• 1871 – Piscione, a child who wets himself, is recorded.^[5][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (vulgar) To urinate, to piss: Il cane ha pisciato contro la ruota.^[6][7][1]
2. (vulgar, transitive) To pass with the urine: pisciare sangue.^[6][7][13]
3. (vulgar, figurative) Of a container or pipe: to leak or squirt a liquid.^[7][13][1]
4. (figurative, colloquial) To say or write too much of something.^[6][7]

Word family

• piscia
• piscio
• pisciata
• pisciatoio
• piscione
• piscialletto
• pisciasangue
• scompisciare
• pisciarella
• pisciatura

Related words

• French pisser
• English piss

Usage notes

Pisciarsi sotto or pisciarsi addosso means to be very afraid, and pisciarsi sotto dal ridere to laugh uncontrollably.^[7][14] Pisciarci sopra is to scorn something.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2949
11. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 783
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)