rogna

Forms

rogna f (plural rogne)^[1] Older forms include Old Italian rognia, Old Italian rongna, Old Italian rugna and Old Italian ròina.^[2] The Umbrian form with -i- is already in Iacopone da Todi.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *rōnea, which Meyer-Lübke explained in 1884 as a variant of Latin arānea (“spider's web; spider”).^[5][6][7][8] From the 5th century the Latin word also named a skin disease, and Nocentini glosses its Late Latin sense as herpes.^[5][6][4] Wikizionario gives the Late Latin form rōnea as recorded in 447 in Cassius Felix.^[9] The stressed ⟨a⟩ became ⟨o⟩ and the first syllable was lost, probably under the influence of rōdō (“to gnaw”), the source of rodere.^{[5][6][10][4]}

The word is found across the western Romance languages: French rogne, Occitan ronha, Catalan ronya, Spanish roña, Portuguese ronha and Sardinian runza.^[6][10][8] The older vowel survives at the edges of the area, in Galician raña, Romanian râie and Megleno-Romanian răñă.^[6][10] DEI calls the word pan-dialectal in Italy.^[3] The source of the Latin word is not clear: it may be Ancient Greek ἀράχνη (arákhnē, “spider”), or both words may come from the same unknown source.^[1]

A widespread alternative starts from Latin aerūgō (“rust; verdigris”), crossed with a further Italian or Latin form.^[5][4][11] Devoto names vergogna as the crossing form.^[12] Meyer-Lübke rejected this view because it explains neither the ⟨o⟩ nor the loss of the first syllable in French, Occitan and Catalan.^[10] Diez had derived it from rōbīgō (“rust”), which Körting called impossible in sound and sense.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Florentine poet Rustico Filippi, in the second half of the 13th century, for a contagious skin disease with intense itching, the same as scabies.^[2][4] DELI dates the word from Iacopone da Todi, who died in 1306.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word in proverbs and figuratively for a moral evil.^[2] Dante's e lascia pur grattar dov'è la rogna (“and let them scratch where the itch is”, Paradiso XVII) is the best-known example.^[13][14][15] The sense of a persistent nuisance, a thing or person that keeps troubling one, is recorded before 1338 in Bindo Bonichi, and the TLIO also has the phrases cercare rogna, to look for trouble, and dare rogna da grattare, to make difficulties for someone.^[5][2]

In medieval medicine the word covered skin diseases in general: Pietro Crescenzi's translator wrote that salt water corrupts the blood and causes itching and rogna.^[16] Modern usage keeps it for scabies in people, for mange and similar diseases of domestic animals, and in botany for diseases that cause tumours on plants, such as those of the olive and the vine.^[7][17][18] At Lucca it names the tuberculosis of the olive tree.^[3] The adjective rognoso, mangy, is recorded in the 14th century, and later also meant mean or tiresome.^[5]

Timeline

• 1250–1300 – Rustico Filippi uses rogna for the itching skin disease.^[2]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone da Todi uses the word.^[5]
• Before 1338 – Bindo Bonichi uses it for a persistent nuisance.^[5]
• 14th century – Rognoso, mangy, is recorded.^[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) Scabies;^{[7][13][17][1]} (veterinary) mange and other contagious skin diseases of domestic animals caused by mites.^{[7][13][17][1]}
2. (botany) A disease of plants caused by bacteria or fungi, with tumour-like growths, as on the olive or the vine.^[13][17][18]
3. (colloquial, figurative) A nuisance, a troublesome matter or person: Questo trasloco è una vera rogna. The phrase cercare rogne means to go looking for trouble.^{[7][13][18][1]}
4. (by extension, popular) Dirt, filth on the skin.^[7][18]
5. (literary, archaic) A moral vice.^[13][18]

Word family

• rognoso
• rognare

Related words

• aragna
• ragno
• ragna
• Latin arānea
• French rogne
• Spanish roña

Usage notes

The phrase cercare rogna or cercare rogne means to provoke someone without thinking of the consequences.^[13][18] Erba rogna is the cypress spurge.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3277
4. ^ 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, p. 17, 29
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
10. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
17. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)