poltiglia

Forms

poltiglia f (plural poltiglie)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian pultiglia, Old Italian pultigla, Old Italian poltigi and Old Italian poltiyo.^[2]

Etymology

In the view of DELI, Nocentini and GRADIT it is inherited from Late Latin pulticula (“porridge”), a diminutive of Latin puls (“pottage of spelt or beans”).^[3][4][5][6] Nocentini notes that the ending is of a northern type.^[4] Other dictionaries, from Devoto to the Treccani, Zingarelli and Devoto–Oli, take it instead from Old French poltille or poltile, itself from the Latin diminutive.^{[7][8][9][10][11]} Meyer-Lübke already derived it from poutilles (“porridge; mud”).^[12]

Nocentini cites the Old French plural with the sense “mud” as the cognate.^[4][13] A related form is Bolognese pultéi “mush”.^[13]

The Latin noun also gave Italian polta.^[3][4] It recalls Ancient Greek πόλτος (póltos, “porridge”), but de Vaan doubts a loan from Greek, since nouns of that Greek type usually keep their stem class when Latin borrows them.^[14] He suggests both go back to one base, Latin with an i-stem, and compares Latin pollen (“fine flour”), with a root that may be Mediterranean.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the first Florentine version of the translation of Valerius Maximus, from 1338, where poltiglia is the same as polta, a cooked mush of flour.^[2] In Old Italian it was also a medical mash of cereal flour with water or oil, eaten as a cure, and a poultice of flour and herbs cooked in liquid and spread hot on a cloth.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Italian translation of Crescenzi, about 1350, uses it for mixtures of flour or powders, edible or not.^[3] Its remedies include a poltiglia of fenugreek flour laid on the stomach.^[15] The sense “liquid mud” appears before 1629, in Allegri.^[3][13]

Today the word is used mostly with a note of disgust, for overcooked food that has turned into a sticky mass, and for slush on the roads.^[5][16][10] In agriculture poltiglia bordolese is the copper sulphate and lime mixture sprayed against fungus on vines.^[8][9][10]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – GRADIT's date for the first record.^[5]
• 1338 – The first Florentine translation of Valerius Maximus uses poltiglia.^[2]
• c. 1350 – The Italian Crescenzi uses poltiglia for a mixture of flour or powder.^[3]
• Before 1629 – Allegri uses poltiglia for liquid mud.^[3]
• 18th century – Poltiglioso is recorded.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. mush: a soft, sticky, half-liquid mixture of flour, powder or other substances: Il purè era diventato una poltiglia.^[5][8][16]
2. slush, mire: liquid mud: Le scarpe affondavano nella poltiglia del sentiero.^[5][8][16]
3. (agriculture) A liquid fungicide mixture: poltiglia bordolese, Bordeaux mixture.^[8][9][10]

Word family

• poltiglioso
• impoltigliare

Related words

• polta
• polline
• Latin puls

Usage notes

Ridurre in poltiglia “to reduce to a pulp” is used figuratively for beating someone badly or crushing them.^[8][10] An old spelling is pultiglia.^[8][15]

References

1. ^ a b 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 f 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ 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)
11. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3006
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse