rugumare

Forms

rugumare (first-person singular present rùgumo, first-person singular past historic rugumài, past participle rugumàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include rugomare, rogumare and rugmare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin rūmigō (“to chew the cud”), with metathesis: the consonants of rumig- changed places and the vowels before the stress were assimilated.^[4][5][1][6] The same Late Latin verb is the source of Old French rumier, Old Occitan romiar, Catalan rumiar, Spanish rumiar, Portuguese romiar, Sardinian rumigare and Romanian rumega.^[4][7] The metathesis is old: it is shared by Romanian ruguma, Sicilian ragumari and Corsican forms.^[6][7] The variants digrumare and the Chiana Valley form ⟨arigrumère⟩ show further changes.^[6][7]

Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti derive the Latin verb from rūmen (“rumen, the first stomach”), the base of classical rūminō.^[8][9][1] Zingarelli and Gabrielli instead take it from rūmis (“teat”), whose origin Zingarelli calls uncertain.^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the first record to 1268, and Nocentini and GRADIT to before 1292.^[3][4][5] The sense was “to chew the cud”: in Bono Giamboni a fish called porco has its mouth under its throat so that it can ruminate.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Tuscan the verb was the ordinary word for chewing the cud.^[2][11] Fra Giordano explains that the clean animals of the Law had to chew the cud and have cloven hooves, and Boccaccio and San Bernardino da Siena use it of sheep and oxen.^[2] Prati also records it in Albertano's translations and in Buti.^[11] The noun rugumazione is recorded from the 14th century.^[4][6]

The figurative sense, to turn something over in the mind, grew alongside, and Nocentini glosses the Tuscan word as both “to ruminate” and “to brood”.^[4][5] By the 19th century Tommaseo–Bellini sent readers to ruminare, and DEI calls the word old, now rustic Tuscan.^[12][6] D'Annunzio, Bacchelli and Pirandello still used it as a literary word, both for animals and for brooding.^[13]

Timeline

• 1268 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses rugumare of a fish.^[4][5][2]
• 14th century – The noun rugumazione is recorded.^[4][6]
• 16th century – The participle rugumante is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (Tuscan, archaic) To ruminate (ruminare), chew the cud: Le vacche rugumavano all’ombra.^{[5][8][9][3][1]}
2. (figurative) To brood over, ponder at length on a thought or a speech: Rugumava da giorni quella risposta.^[5][10][13]

Word family

• rugumazione
• rugumante

Related words

• ruminare
• digrumare
• Latin rūmen

Usage notes

The present tense is stressed on the first syllable: rùgumo.^[8][3][1] The verb is regional or literary;^[5][8][13] ruminare is the usual word.^[5][8][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 230
3. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3296
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
11. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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)