rastro

Forms

rastro m (plural rastri)^[1] In Lucca the word has the form rasto.^[2]

Etymology

It is a learned word: it is borrowed from Latin rāstrum (“drag-hoe”).^[3][4][5][6] Treccani also gives the by-form Latin raster.^[7]

The Latin noun is formed from rādō (“to scrape, scratch”) with the instrumental suffix -trum.^[8][1][2] In Latin it was usually masculine in the plural, rastrī, the form Italian has.^[8][1] The verb rādō goes back to Proto-Italic *rasd-.^[9]

rastrello, the usual Italian word for a rake, comes from the Latin diminutive rastellus, reshaped with the ⟨r⟩ of rāstrum.^[10] Derivatives of the Latin word in other languages took other senses: Spanish rastro and Portuguese rasto mean a drag, a sledge or a track left on the ground.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are from the 14th century, in an Old Aretine text, and GRADIT and Zingarelli date the word to before 1320.^[2][3][4] It meant a rake, a tool for working the soil.^[2][13]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the word appears in lists of farm tools: Boccaccio has the women of Thrace kill Orpheus “with mattocks and rakes” (co’ marroni e co’ rastri), and the Italian Ovid has the farmer always turning the earth “with the ploughshare and the rakes”.^[5] The Crescenzi translation says that the seed of madder should be covered only with the rastro.^[14]

In the 15th century it became a poetic word: Poliziano wrote Or si vede il villan domar col rastro / le dure zolle (“now the peasant is seen taming the hard clods with the rake”), and Sannazaro listed i vomeri, i rastri, le zappe, gli aratri (“the ploughshares, the rakes, the hoes, the ploughs”).^[2][14][7] The modern dictionaries label it literary in this sense.^[15][4][16]

Two technical senses followed.^[2][14] In 1914 the word came to name a farm implement used together with the plough, a kind of scarifier with long curved teeth.^[2][17] In music a rastro is a small brass tool with several parallel points, which draws the five lines of a stave on paper in one stroke.^[14][4]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – First record of rastro.^[3][4]
• 14th century – Rastro appears in an Old Aretine text.^[2]
• 15th century – Poliziano and Sannazaro use the word in poetry and prose.^[2][14]
• 19th century – Tommaseo–Bellini records the music tool for drawing staves.^[14]
• 1914 – The word comes to name an implement used with the plough.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) A rake: a long-handled tool with teeth for working the soil: Il contadino spianava le zolle col rastro.^{[3][15][4][16]}
2. (agriculture) A kind of scarifier, a farm implement with long curved teeth, worked together with the plough (aratro).^{[3][17][4][18]}
3. (music) A small tool, usually of brass, used to draw the lines of the stave (pentagramma) on paper.^{[3][15][17][4][1]}

Related words

• rastrello
• radere
• Latin rastrum

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 3211
3. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ 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, 537
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
14. ^ a b c d e f Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli