polpa

Forms

polpa f (plural polpe)^[1] Old Italian texts also have the forms Old Italian pulpa and the plural Old Italian pulpi.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pulpa (“fleshy part of the body; meat without fat or bone”), a popular word that has come down without a break from Latin.^[3][4][5][1] The dictionaries mark the Latin vowel as short, and it gives the closed /o/ of Italian.^[3][4][6]

The word is pan-Romance: Old French poupe, Occitan polpa, Catalan polpa, Portuguese polpa, Sardinian pulpa and Romanian pulpă continue it, while French pulpe and Spanish pulpa were taken over in learned form.^[4][7] In Auvergnat, Provençal and Catalan the word also means “calf of the leg”, and in Switzerland a form of it means “palm of the hand”.^[7] Meyer-Lübke also lists Venetian and Friulian words for the calf of the leg that have an unexpected vowel.^[7]

The Umbrian genitive pelmner (“of meat”) shows that the first vowel of the Latin word was once /e/, so de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *pelpā (“meat”), with Latin pulmentum (“small portion of meat or fish”) from a related *pelp-mento-.^[8][1] No further origin is known.^[8] Wiktionary connects it with Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“flour, dust”),^[1] and Nocentini places it, with that noun, among the words of the Roman kitchen that probably belong with Latin puls (“porridge, bean pottage”) (Italian polta).^[4] Devoto notes that the word has no connections outside Italy.^[9] It is not related to polpo “octopus”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Istoria of the Pseudo-Uguccione, a Lombard text of the first half of the 13th century, where it means the soft tissues, muscle and fat, that cover the skeleton of a person or animal.^[2] DELI dates the word from Dante (before 1321), in the anatomical sense of soft tissue.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for the meat of animals cooked or to be cooked, for the calf of the leg, and for the flesh as the material part of a person against the spirit.^[2] Paired with words for the hard parts, bones and tendons, it stood for the whole living body.^[2] Dante's Guido da Montefeltro speaks of the time when he was “a form of bones and flesh” (mentre ch'io forma fui d'ossa e di polpe, Inferno 27).^[10][11] The proverb lasciarci le polpe e l'ossa meant to be ruined completely.^[10]

The sense “soft juicy part of a fruit” appears around 1350 in the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi, the sense “boneless lean meat of a butchered animal” before 1510, and the plural for the calves of the legs in 1540–41 in Firenzuola.^[3] The TLIO also records the soft inner part of a plant stem.^[2] From the calves came the phrase in polpe, said of a man in the 17th- and 18th-century dress of knee breeches and close stockings, later the livery of servants on grand occasions.^[11][12]

Modern Italian adds technical senses: the dental pulp and the pulp of the spleen in anatomy, the pulped residue of sugar beet used as fodder, and the inner part of a tree trunk.^[5][13] Figuratively it is the substance of a speech or a piece of writing.^[5][13][6] Among the derivatives, polpastrello “fingertip” goes back to before 1400, polpaccio “calf” to before 1406, polpetta “meatball” to about 1450, and polpettone “meat loaf” to 1549;^[3] polpettone was also said of a muddled, long-winded work from 1854.^[3]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – The Lombard Istoria of the Pseudo-Uguccione has the first record of polpa.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses polpe for the flesh of the body.^[3][10]
• About 1350 – The Italian Crescenzi uses the word for the flesh of a fruit.^[3]
• Before 1400 – Polpastrello is recorded in Franco Sacchetti.^[3]
• Before 1406 – Polpaccio “calf of the leg” appears in Francesco da Buti.^[3]
• Before 1510 – Sabadino degli Arienti uses polpa for lean boneless meat.^[3]
• 1540–1541 – Firenzuola uses the plural polpe for the calves.^[3]
• 1549 – Polpettone appears in Messisbugo's cookery book.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The lean meat of a butchered animal, without bone or fat; also the edible flesh of some fish and crustaceans: Ho comprato mezzo chilo di polpa di maiale.^[5][13][6]
2. The soft, juicy part of a fleshy fruit, usually the mesocarp: Queste albicocche hanno una polpa morbida.^[5][13][6]
3. (literary) The flesh of the human body, especially as opposed to the bones.^[5][13][11]
4. (archaic, chiefly plural) The calves of the legs; also the part of a boot that covered the calf.^[5][13][14]
5. (anatomy) Soft tissue, especially in polpa dentaria, the dental pulp filling the cavity of a tooth, and polpa splenica, the tissue of the spleen.^[13][14][5]
6. (figurative) The substance or core of a speech, a piece of writing or a theory.^[5][13][6]
7. A paste made of the fleshy part of plant matter, soaked and passed through a sieve.^[5]
8. (chiefly plural) The residue left after processing sugar beet, used as cattle fodder.^[5][6][15]
9. The innermost part of a tree trunk, protected by the bark.^[5]

Word family

• polpaccio
• polpastrello
• polpetta
• polpettone
• polposo
• polputo
• pulpite
• rimpolpare
• spolpare
• impolpare
• depolpare

Related words

• polta
• Latin pulpa
• French pulpe

Usage notes

Essere in polpa or bene in polpa means to be well fed, plump.^[11][12] In the 16th century polpa was also a feminine of polpo “octopus”, as in Messisbugo's list of fish.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 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
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 k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 337
10. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ 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)
12. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13