ruga

Forms

ruga f (plural rughe)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rūga (“wrinkle, fold”).^[2][3][4][1] The word is Occitan ruga, Spanish arruga and Portuguese arruga, and in French rue it came to mean a street between houses.^[3][5] The same Latin word gave ruvido through Vulgar Latin *rūgidus.^[3][5]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *rougā and Proto-Indo-European *h₁roug-h₂- (“wrinkle”), and links it with ērūgō (“to belch”), since words for “wrinkle” and for “to belch” are often both derived from “to be rugged”; a direct link with runcō and Lithuanian raũkas (“wrinkle”) fails on the different consonant.^[6][1] Nocentini still compares the Lithuanian word and a Greek word for “digging”.^[3]

The sense “street” has the same origin: it is first recorded in a document of 764 from Saint-Denis, spread from northern France and reached Italy by way of the Levant.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Nocentini date the first record to the end of the 13th century.^[4][3] Among the oldest quotations in the GDLI are Lotto Pisano and Guittone d'Arezzo using it for a street, a lane between houses.^[7] The sense “wrinkle in the skin” is first in Boccaccio (1341–1342), who praises a broad white brow senza alcuna ruga.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian ruga “street” was used in literature, by Guittone, G. Villani and Boccaccio, whose Decameron has a street chiamata la Ruga Catalana.^[2][8][7] It survives in some western Tuscan dialects and in Venice, where a street lined with houses and shops is still a ruga.^[2][9]

The “wrinkle” sense spread to folds in mucous membranes, furrows in bark and long ridges on the sea floor.^[4][9] Ariosto made it a fault of the soul, with Virtue carrying the mirror that shows every ruga of the mind.^[9][4] Today it can also be a sign of age in a thing, as of an ideology that shows its wrinkles.^[10]

Timeline

• 764 – A document from Saint-Denis records Latin ruga for a street.^[2]
• End of the 13th century – Ruga is first recorded in Italian.^[4][3]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses it for a wrinkle, and rugoso.^[2]
• 1400s – Rugosità is first recorded.^[3]
• 1500s – Ariosto uses it for a fault of the soul.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wrinkle: a fold in the skin, especially of the face, from age or from the movement of the muscles: Le rughe intorno agli occhi le davano un'aria allegra.^[4][12][13]
2. (anatomy) A fold on the surface of a mucosa: ruga vaginale.^[4][10]
3. (botany) A furrow in the bark of a tree.^[4][12]
4. (geology) A long ridge on the sea floor; a fold or undulation of the ground.^[4][13][12]
5. (figurative, literary) A fault, a flaw; a hidden thought of the mind.^[4][12]
6. (archaic, regional) A street, a narrow lane between houses; in Venice, a street lined with houses and shops.^[4][12][9]

Word family

• rugoso
• rugosità
• corrugare
• corrugamento
• rughetta
• antirughe

Related words

• ruvido
• rua
• Latin rūga
• French rue

Usage notes

GRADIT lists two more nouns ruga: a technical name for the caterpillar of butterflies and millipedes (1959), from Latin erūca with the first syllable dropped, and a regional variant of ruca, the salad plant also called ruchetta.^[4] Zingarelli dates the caterpillar sense to before 1602, and Treccani calls it popular.^[10][14] The GDLI also records ruga as the Milanese name of rue, from Latin ruta, and as a Lombard name for a vine beetle.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3294
12. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana