rosa

Forms

rosa f (plural rose, diminutive (uncommon) rosèlla or rosellìna (diminutive of diminutive) or rosétta or rosettìna (diminutive of diminutive))^[1] Old and dialect forms include riòsa, ròxa, ròza and ruòxa.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rosa, which meant both the flower and the rosebush.^[4][5][6][1] The same word is French rose, Occitan rosa, Catalan rosa, Spanish rosa and Portuguese rosa.^[5][3] Meyer-Lübke and Körting thought that the word was everywhere shaped by the language of books, botanists and poets.^[3][7]

The Latin word is related to Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon) and an Iranian word for the rose, but it is not of Indo-European origin: Ernout and Meillet took it to be a loan from a Mediterranean civilization that cultivated the plant, perhaps Semitic.^[4][6] Nocentini derives the Greek word from an earlier *wṛdo-, from Proto-Iranian *wṛda-, said first of the dog rose.^[5] Wiktionary suggests the Latin form came from a variant of the Greek, perhaps through another Italic language or an Aeolic *ῥοζά (*rhozá).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cielo d'Alcamo's contrasto (1231–1250) opens with Rosa fresca aulentissima, “fresh and most fragrant rose”, addressed to a woman.^[4] The flower is thus the first sense; the shrub is recorded about 1340 in the translation of Palladius.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Before 1257 Bonagiunta uses the word in poetry for the rosy colour of cheeks and lips, and Boccaccio for a red mark on the skin, which women called rose.^[4] The flower stood for beauty and youth, and in Ariosto for a girl's virginity.^[6][8] The rosa dei venti, the compass rose, is named after the flower-like early drawings of the directions of the winds.^[4]

In 1771 a Piedmontese law uses the word for a group of persons, the sense of a shortlist of candidates and, in sport, of a team's squad.^[4][6] Giusti in 1842 described the spread of shot from a gun as far la rosa.^[4] As an invariable noun and adjective rosa is the colour pink (adjective 1420, noun 1885); it also came to mean sentimental or romantic, as in romanzo rosa and cronaca rosa, gossip.^[4][1] The maglia rosa of the Giro d'Italia takes its colour from the paper of the Gazzetta dello Sport.^[4]

Timeline

• 1231–1250 – Cielo d'Alcamo writes Rosa fresca aulentissima.^[4]
• Before 1257 – Bonagiunta uses rosa for the colour of the cheeks.^[4]
• c. 1340 – The shrub is named in the translation of Palladius.^[4]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it for a red mark on the skin.^[4]
• 1420 – Saviozzo uses rosa as an adjective of colour.^[4]
• 1771 – A Piedmontese law uses it for a group of persons.^[4]
• 1842 – Giusti uses far la rosa of the spread of shot.^[4]
• 1885 – The noun rosa “pink” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rose, the fragrant flower with a long thorny stem: Le ho regalato dodici rose rosse.^[6][9][8]
2. The rosebush, any thorny shrub of the genus Rosa.^[6][9][10]
3. (figurative) A beautiful young woman; in literature, a girl's virginity.^[6]
4. A shortlist of selected candidates for a post or prize: la rosa dei finalisti.^[6][1]
5. (sport) The squad of a team.^[6][1][11]
6. An object shaped like a rose, such as a rose window (rosone) or the round spread of shot from a gun.^[8][4]
7. (heraldry) The rose as a heraldic figure.^[1][11]
8. (masculine, invariable) The colour pink.^[4][1]

Adjective

1. (invariable) Pink: un vestito rosa.^[4][1]
2. (invariable) Sentimental, romantic, of novels and films; of news, about the private life of famous people: la stampa rosa.^[1]

Word family

• rosaceo
• rosaio
• rosario
• rosato
• roseo
• roseola
• roseto
• rosetta
• rosolaccio
• rosolia
• rosone
• rosé
• rosellina

Related words

• Latin rosa
• Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon)

Usage notes

A second rosa, pronounced with a closed /o/, is a regional and old word: the feminine of roso, past participle of rodere “to gnaw”, it means a place eaten away by water (about 1400, Viviani 1688) and in Tuscany an itch.^{[6][12][2][9]} Proverbs include non c'è rosa senza spine, every joy has its trouble, and se son rose fioriranno, time will tell.^[6][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
12. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3282
13. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana