renoso

Forms

renoso (feminine renosa, masculine plural renosi, feminine plural renose)^[1] Southern dialect forms include Sicilian rinusu, recorded in Sicilian from 1519 and also used in southern Calabria.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Italian rena + -oso, from rena (“sand”), the shorter form of arena.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Other sources take it straight from Latin arēnōsus (“sandy”), a derivative of harēna (“sand”).^[8][1] Devoto combines the two views: the Latin adjective, reshaped after Italian rena.^[9] The LEI files it under the Latin word, among the forms that lost the initial ⟨a-⟩, as rena did beside arena.^[2]

The Latin adjective also lives on in Romanian arinos, Old French arenous, French aréneux, Old Occitan arenos, Catalan arenós, Spanish arenoso, Galician areoso and Portuguese areoso, and in Italian arenoso.^[2] Latin harēna itself has no known etymology.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, dated 1320 by the LEI and GRADIT and about 1350 by DELI, where the word describes sandy ground: a horse is to be led through luoghi renosi (sandy places) to train its legs.^{[2][3][11][12]}

Semantic evolution

The word has always meant “sandy, full of sand” and, by extension, “like sand”, and was used mainly of soil and terrain.^[12][13] Fazio degli Uberti wrote of a campagna renosa in which a running horse sinks, and Cellini of a founder's earth that is alquanto renosa (somewhat sandy).^[13][2] Redi used the superlative renosissimo, and the derivatives renosiccio “somewhat sandy” (before 1574, Vasari) and renosità “sandiness” (1320) followed.^[2]

Today it is a rare word: GRADIT marks it as of low use, and Zingarelli sends the reader to the synonym arenoso.^[3][14]

Timeline

• 1320 – The Italian translation of Crescenzi uses renoso and renosità.^[2][3]
• 1367 – Fazio degli Uberti uses the word in the Dittamondo.^[2][13]
• 1519 – Sicilian rinusu is recorded by Scobar.^[2]
• Before 1574 – Vasari uses the derivative renosiccio.^[2]
• Before 1698 – Redi uses the superlative renosissimo.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. sandy: containing rena or made of it: un suolo renoso lungo il fiume.^[4][5][8][6]
2. Like sand in texture or appearance.^[4][8][6]

Word family

• renosità
• renosiccio

Related words

• rena
• arena
• arenoso
• Latin arenosus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 1055
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 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 c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 367
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ 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, 815
13. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli