prescia

Forms

prescia f (plural presce)^[1] Old forms include presia, pressga and pressia.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pressia (“haste; crowd”), a noun from pressō (“to press”), the intensive of premō (“to press”).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} Nocentini takes the spoken Latin form as a variant of pressa, formed from the past participle of the same verb.^[7]

Meyer-Lübke glosses the Latin word as both “throng” and “haste”, and finds it in Romansh prescha, Friulian prese and Old Occitan prieisa.^[8] Wiktionary adds Spanish prisa, Neapolitan prescia and Sicilian prescia.^[1] Nocentini calls it a central and southern word, and Battisti and Alessio a word of the north and south of Italy and of Occitan.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini, De Mauro and Devoto–Oli date it to the 13th or 14th century, with the sense “haste”.^[7][3][4] The GDLI quotes the form pressga in the old Giostra delle virtù e dei vizi: Con grande pressga partese adlora lu Timore (“then Fear left in great haste”).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Battisti and Alessio date the Tuscan literary use to Firenzuola in the 16th century, with the adverbial all'imprescia “in a hurry” in Della Casa.^[9][10] An older sense “crowd, throng” is also recorded.^[10][9] Tommaseo's dictionary noted that it lived on in some dialects.^[10] Today it is marked as old or regional, central and southern, mostly in avere prescia “to be in a hurry” and andare di prescia “to be in a great hurry”.^[4][6][11]

Timeline

• 13th–14th century – the first records.^[7][3]
• 16th century – Firenzuola uses the word, and Della Casa all'imprescia.^[9]
• 1829 – the adverb presciosamente is recorded.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic or regional, central and southern Italy) hurry, haste; fretta: avere prescia, to be in a hurry.^{[3][4][5][11][1]}
2. (obsolete) A crowd, throng.^[10][9]

Word family

• imprescia

Related words

• pressa
• pressare
• premere
• Latin premō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 14, 213
3. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3068
10. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)