polta

Forms

polta f (plural polte)^[1] The old forms include Old Italian polte and northern Old Italian polt.^[2][3] Later texts have póltia and the Latinizing pulte.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin puls (“porridge of spelt or bean meal”), from its accusative, moved into the nouns in ⟨-a⟩.^[6][7][8][9] The Latin word survives elsewhere in Romance: Romansh put in the Engadine, Old French pou, and the plural Spanish puches (“porridge”).^[10][11] An Old French derivative gave Italian poltiglia.^[10]

The Latin word is compared with Ancient Greek πόλτος (póltos, “porridge”), which DELI and Zingarelli call of uncertain origin.^[6][12][4] De Vaan suspects a loan from the Greek word, since the Latin stem can go back to *polti-, but notes that o-stems borrowed from Greek usually stay o-stems in Latin.^[13] Both words may then continue a common base, and the root could be the one of pollen (“fine flour”), with the sense “flour”, perhaps a Mediterranean loanword.^[13] Nocentini also puts the word in that family, and Wiktionary derives the Greek word from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“flour, dust”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Milanese poems of Bonvesin de la Riva in the 13th century, for a dish made by cooking a cereal flour in water until it is a thick mush.^[2] DELI dates the word to about 1340, in the Italian translation of Palladius.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the word was also used for a mash of flour and liquid fed to animals.^[2] The translated Palladius tells farmers to give chicks barley meal with wine on the first day “and then polta cooked with wine, and cooled” (e poi polta cotta con vino, e raffreddata).^[14]

In later Italian polta became a learned word for the porridge of the ancient Romans, eaten before bread was known and later the food of the poor and of slaves.^[8][5][3] The 16th-century writer Landò contrasted it with Greek polenta: Italians lived long on polte as the Greeks did on polenta.^[4] From the meaning “mash for poultry” it was extended to any mixture or sludge.^[8][15][3]

Timeline

• 13th century – Bonvesin de la Riva uses the word in Milanese verse.^[2]
• About 1340 – The Italian Palladius has polta.^[6][8]
• Before 1758 – Antonio Cocchi uses the derivative poltaceo, “like polenta in consistency”.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) A kind of porridge of wheat or bean flour, the food of the ancient Romans before bread, later eaten by the poor and by slaves.^[8][5][3]
2. A mash for farmyard animals.^[8][16]
3. (by extension) A messy mixture, a poltiglia.^[8][15][3]

Word family

• poltaceo

Related words

• poltiglia
• polenta
• polline
• Latin puls

Usage notes

The word is literary and uncommon today.^[5][8] In Pistoia the derivative poltricchio means “mush”.^[17][10]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 793