resina

Forms

resina f (plural resine)^[1] Old Italian forms include rasina, Old Italian raxina, Old Italian rexina and Old Italian risina.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rēsīna (“resin”), taken from books.^[3][4][5] DELI and Nocentini hold that Latin, like Ancient Greek ῥητίνη (rhētínē), borrowed the word from a non-Indo-European language, the two entering separately.^[3][6] GRADIT, Zingarelli and Treccani call it pre-Indo-European,^[4][7][8] while the OLD and Wiktionary take the Latin word as an adaptation of the Greek word.^[9][1]

Nocentini sets it among the words of all the Romance languages: French résine, Occitan rezina, Catalan rehina, Spanish resina, Portuguese resina and Romanian rășină.^[6] Meyer-Lübke marks the Italian, French and Portuguese words as learned and gives a Latin variant rasina, with popular outcomes in the dialects.^[10] Tommaseo took ragia from the old form Old Italian rasina.^[11]

The stress moved back from the second syllable of the Latin word to the first of ⟨rèsina⟩.^[12][8] Teachers of pronunciation and lexicographers insisted on the stress on the second syllable, which is right by the etymology but against usage except in the dialects;^[3] DELI quotes Spadafora, who wrote that ⟨resìna⟩ was the common form even in Rome, but that Siena said ⟨résina⟩.^[3] Nocentini thinks the proparoxytone won because it sounded finer, as learned words often have that stress.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni's translation of Vegetius (before 1292), for the flammable substance smeared with wax and pitch on boards: assi ed altre legna unte di cera di pece e di resina (“boards and other wood smeared with wax, pitch and resin”).^[2][3][13]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the substance some plants, chiefly conifers, exude, used in medicine and cosmetics and as a weapon to start fires.^[2] Tommaseo noted that resina and ragia were once used alike, but that resina had become the general name and ragia the resin of the pine.^[11]

A distinction between natural resins and those made by art is recorded in 1795, and resina sintetica, the organic polymer used as the base of plastics, in 1931.^[3] Derivatives followed: resinoso in the Ricettario fiorentino (1499–1573), resinato in Mattioli (1542), resinifero before 1577, and resinare and resinatura in 1959.^[3]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni's Vegetius has the first record.^[2][3]
• 1542 – Resinato appears in Mattioli.^[3]
• Before 1577 – Resinifero is recorded.^[3]
• 1795 – Natural and artificial resins are distinguished.^[3]
• 1931 – Resina sintetica appears in the Enciclopedia italiana.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. resin: the sticky, fragrant substance secreted by pines, firs and other conifers.^{[4][12][14][1]}
2. (chemistry) A natural or synthetic organic substance with marked plastic properties;^{[4][15][12][7]} resina sintetica, a synthetic polymer used to make plastics.^{[4][15][12][7]}

Word family

• resinoso
• resinato
• resinifero
• resinare
• resinatura
• resinaceo

Related words

• ragia
• Latin resina

Usage notes

The stress is on the first syllable, /ˈrɛ.zi.na/;^{[1][3][12][7]} resìna survives in the dialects, and Sabatini–Coletti and Zingarelli also allow résina.^{[1][3][12][7]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 834
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 15, 863
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier