pollone

Forms

pollone m (plural polloni)^[1] Old Italian also has pollon, Old Italian poloni and Old Italian polun.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin pullus (“young animal; sprout”) with the suffix -one.^[3][4][5][6] Nocentini calls it a Romance formation: the Latin word, properly “chick” (whence pollo), was used of a plant's shoot by a metaphor from the animal to the plant world, as with cacchio.^[6] Cato already uses the Latin word for a young branch.^[7] DEI compares Venetian póla.^[7]

Treccani and Gabrielli derive it instead from the old verb pollare (“to sprout”), and Devoto saw it as an action noun drawn from that verb, with the augmentative suffix.^[8][9][10]

The origin of the Latin noun is disputed: one view takes it from Proto-Indo-European *polH-on- (“offspring, young animal”), comparing Ancient Greek πῶλος (pôlos, “foal”); another from a root ⟨*put-⟩ “boy”.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the first record to before 1320; the TLIO's first record is the Tuscan translation of Palladius from the first half of the 14th century, with the sense of a new shoot or sprig of a plant.^[3][2] DELI's first date is the translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on farming, about 1350.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The botanical sense has stayed the main one: a young shoot from an adventitious bud of a woody plant, often around the scar of an old cut.^[3][12][8] The Crescenzi translation already explains it by the synonym rampollo.^[13]

Figurative uses came in the 16th century: Varchi called rhetoric “a pollone, or offshoot, of dialectic”.^[13][7][8] In literary use the word also means a descendant, a scion of a family.^[3][12]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – First record.^[3]
• First half of the 14th century – The Tuscan Palladius uses pollone.^[2]
• About 1350 – Pollone in the translation of Crescenzi.^[5]
• 16th century – Varchi uses the word figuratively.^[7][13]
• 1759 – The derivative polloneto appears in Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany, agriculture) A sucker or young shoot growing from an adventitious bud of a woody plant, from the trunk, the base or the roots, often around the scar of an earlier cut.^{[3][12][4][8]}
2. (figurative) A discipline or school that grows out of an earlier one.^[3]
3. (figurative, literary) A descendant, scion.^[3][12][4]

Word family

• polloncello
• polloneto
• pollonare
• spollonare
• impollonito

Related words

• pollo
• pollare
• Latin pullus

Usage notes

DIFIT also records pollone as an augmentative of pollo, a young cockerel or hen; it tentatively connects English Polari palone “young woman” (1930s) with that word.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3004
8. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it