porcello

Forms

porcello m (plural porcelli, feminine porcella)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin porcellus (“piglet”), a diminutive of porcus (“pig”) (on porco).^[2][3][1][4] Some dictionaries see it as a double diminutive, formed on porculus (“little pig”).^[5][6][7] The Latin word is found from Varro, and the feminine porcella from Plautus.^[8][9]

The word is pan-Romance: French pourceau, Occitan porsel, Catalan porsel, Sardinian porkeddu and Romanian purcel.^[2][10] In Lombardy, Monferrato, Normandy, Picardy, Wallonia and Lorraine it replaced the simple word, and in Romanian it also means roast pork.^[10] It was borrowed as Welsh porchell.^[10][8]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *porkos and Proto-Indo-European *pórḱos, originally “digger”, from the root of the word for a furrow; it is related to Old English fearh “pig” and Lithuanian paršas “piglet”.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Florentine documents of 1272: an account notes money paid for a porcello serbatoio, a pig bought to be kept until the following year.^[11][12][13] The sense is “young pig, raised for slaughter”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used porcello of young pigs being raised or ready for slaughter, and scrofa da porcelli of a sow of breeding age.^[12] Old forms include porciello, porchellu and purchelli.^[12] The word was also used more loosely for a pig in general, and as food.^[13][14]

The figurative sense “dirty person, person of bad habits” is first recorded in Italian dictionaries in 1965, but Venetian porcelo already had it in 1829.^[11] The modern dictionaries add a person who speaks or behaves coarsely, and a greedy, fat person.^[3]

The feminine porcella gave porcellana, first the name of a sea shell and then of porcelain, the ware imported from China from the 16th century, whose surface resembled the shell.^[10][15]

Timeline

• 1272 – Porcello appears in Florentine documents.^[11][3]
• 1829 – Venetian porcelo is used of a dirty person.^[11]
• 1865 – The augmentative porcellone is recorded.^[2]
• 1965 – The figurative sense “dirty person” is recorded in Italian.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young pig, a piglet;^[3][16][17] grasso come un porcello, very fat.^[3][16][17]
2. (figurative, humorous) A person who is often dirty and careless of hygiene.^[3][16][18]
3. (figurative) A person who speaks or behaves coarsely or licentiously.^[3][16][17]
4. (figurative, colloquial) A greedy, fat person.^[3]
5. (zoology) porcello acquatico, the capybara.^[5][6]

Word family

• porcellino
• porcellone
• porciglione
• porcella

Related words

• porco
• porcellana
• Latin porcellus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3021
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse