reddo

Forms

reddo (feminine redda, masculine plural reddi, feminine plural redde)^[1] Old Italian also wrote redo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rigidus (“stiff, hard”), a popular Sienese outcome of the same Latin word that gave the learned rigido.^[3][4][1][5] Prati compares freddo from Vulgar Latin *frigidus for the same development.^[6] The TLIO leaves open whether the word comes from French raide or directly from the Latin adjective.^[2]

The GDLI points out that the word also belongs to a northern and Gallo-Romance area, with Old Lombard ridi and Piedmontese and Alpine Lombard forms;^[4][3] DELI also mentions parallels in the northern dialects.^[4][3] Cortelazzo and Marcato list Piedmontese rèid (“stiff, hard”) and the verb Sicilian arriddiri (“to be numb, to shiver”), old and also Calabrian, among the popular reflexes of the Latin word.^[5]

The Latin adjective is formed from rigeō (“to be stiff”).^[1][7] De Vaan reconstructs the verb as Proto-Indo-European *Hriǵ-eh₁- (“to be stretched, be stiff”), but DELI calls its origin obscure.^[8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is from the Tuscan Andrea da Grosseto in 1268, in the sense “stiff, not flexible”, the same as rigido.^[2] The Libro della natura degli animali says of the wolf that its neck is so stiff (hae sì reddo lo collo) that it cannot turn it without turning its chest too.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the word had the figurative sense “unbending, strict”.^[2] Felice da Massa Marittima used it for someone slow and hampered in doing good (tenace e reddo), and other writers for a hard, unyielding person.^[9] The Sienese writer Gigli explained that at Siena a woman is called redda when she does not return a greeting, and gave its source as rigidus.^[9]

The word stayed Sienese.^[6][3] Cortelazzo and Marcato, citing a work of 1975, record it in the Siena area for stiff cloth.^[5] Wiktionary also gives the senses “harsh” of weather and “numb with cold”, marked as archaic and literary.^[1]

Timeline

• 1268 – Andrea da Grosseto uses reddo.^[2]
• 1975 – A source cited by Cortelazzo and Marcato records reddo for stiff cloth.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (Tuscany, archaic) stiff, rigid, not flexible.^[2][4][1]
2. (figurative, archaic) Unbending, strict, hard.^[2][4][1]
3. (figurative, archaic) clumsy, hampered.^[4][1]
4. (Siena, of a woman) haughty; not returning a greeting.^[4][1]
5. (of weather, archaic) Harsh, severe; also numb with cold.^[1]

Related words

• rigido
• rigore
• Latin rigidus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 410
6. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 829
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 15, 666