ragia

Forms

ragia f (plural ragie)^[1] Old and dialect forms include race, raggia, rasa, rascia, rassa and raxa.^[2] Venetian and Trentino have rasa, and Piedmontese has brasa.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin rāsia (“resin”), a word known from a gloss, a variant of classical Latin rāsis (“a kind of raw pitch”).^[4][5][6][7] Nocentini and Zingarelli give the Vulgar Latin form as *rāsia.^[5][8] The Latin word may belong to the family of rēsīna (“resin”), perhaps through a substrate language.^[4][5][1]

DELI and the DEI hold that the word reached the literary language from the north, through the northern variant Venetian rasa, and was adapted to Tuscan pronunciation.^[4][3][6] Devoto explains the sound by a northern development of the Vulgar Latin form, which he writes ⟨*rasja⟩, into ⟨*rasgja⟩, which Tuscan rendered as ⟨ragia⟩.^[9] Meyer-Lübke likewise placed the word in northern Italy and asked whether it might come straight from the classical word, starting in the northeast, where /s/ became /z/.^[10] The word is Romansh reza and Friulian raze.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a 13th-century poem of Saladino da Pisa, who compares his lady to resin: quella ke dà splendore / come la ragia albore, a lo sguardare (“she who gives off splendour as resin gives off light, to look at”).^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

Old texts use the word for the resin of pines and other conifers and, more broadly, for pitch.^[12] The merchant's handbook of Balducci Pegolotti (about 1310) explains that ragia di pino is the gum of the wild pine and should be white, thick and free of earth and bark.^[3][12] Giacomino da Verona has the northern form raxa in a description of hell, and Cavalca has race.^[12] The phrase acqua di ragia, recorded as acqua di rasa in Scobar in 1519, named the essence distilled from conifer resin, and gave the compound acquaragia (turpentine) in the 19th century.^[4][5]

The figurative sense “trick, deceit” is used by Berni (1531), and Aretino has the phrase for discovering the trap in 1534.^[3][5] Following Lurati, Nocentini explains it from the use of resin to catch birds, like birdlime.^[5] The Treccani dictionary compares the same figurative use of pegola, and the northern word for pitch had the same sense.^[13][3] In Tuscany the word can also mean a misfortune, or a scolding.^[14][13]

Timeline

• 1200s – Saladino da Pisa uses ragia.^[4]
• About 1310 – Balducci Pegolotti describes ragia di pino.^[3][12]
• 1519 – Scobar records acqua di rasa.^[4]
• 1531 – Berni uses the word in the sense “trick”.^[3]
• 1534 – Aretino has the phrase for seeing through a trick.^[5]
• 1544 – Mattioli uses the word in his commentary on Dioscorides.^[3]
• 1800s – Acquaragia is recorded as one word.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic) resin that flows from the trunk of some conifers, especially pine resin: acqua ragia, see acquaragia.^{[6][14][8][13]}
2. (figurative, Tuscan) A trick, inganno, deceit: Ho capito subito la ragia e non ci sono cascato.^{[6][14][8][13]}
3. (Tuscan) A misfortune, bad luck, or a scolding: che ragia!^[14][7][13]

Word family

• acquaragia
• ragioso

Related words

• resina
• Latin rasis

Usage notes

The plural is ragie or rage.^[14][8] An old form ragia of razza “ray” (the fish) is recorded at Ancona and Pola in the 14th century and at Fiume in 1580.^[3] An Old Italian ragia “rage, fury”, from French rage, is used by Chiaro Davanzati.^[2] Ragia is also a variant of ragià “rajah”.^[3][14]

References

1. ^ a b 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. 15, 340
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3198
4. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 361
10. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier