Etymologically
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sacco

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Pronunciation

Forms

sacco m (plural sacchi or (Old Italian) sacca f)[1] The old plural Old Italian sacca (feminine) survives in popular Tuscan.[2][3] Boccaccio has “Portavano il pan nelle mazze, e ’l vin nelle sacca” (they carried bread on their sticks and wine in their sacks).[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin saccus (“sack, bag”), borrowed from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “coarse cloth of hair; sack”), from a Semitic word: Phoenician *šaqq (“coarse cloth, sack”).[5][6][7][1] Nocentini compares Biblical Hebrew שַׂק (śaq) and Akkadian saqqu.[6] The Greek word meant both a coarse cloth of hair and a sack made of it;[1][5][8] DELI and Gabrielli derive the Semitic word from the sense “coarse cloth”.[1][5][8]

The word is pan-Romance: French sac, Occitan sac, Catalan sac, Spanish saco, Portuguese saco, Sardinian saccu and Romanian sac.[6][9] From Latin it also passed into the Germanic languages, as Old High German sac and Old English sacc, the source of English sack.[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form sacho in a declaration of Paxia of the late 12th century, in the sense “bag of cloth, long and narrow and open at the top, for goods in pieces or powder”.[5][7]

Semantic evolution

The word soon took on senses from the cloth and, from the shape: a rough habit of hermits and penitents (before 1243, Guido Faba), sackcloth (before 1342, Cavalca, after Medieval Latin saccus cilicinus in Salimbene), and a hollow organ of animals or plants (Dante, before 1321).[5] Dante's Inferno names the stomach “’l tristo sacco / che merda fa di quel che si trangugia” (the wretched sack that makes dung of what is swallowed).[10] It was also a dry measure, in Medieval Latin from 1299 and in Italian in Nicola Zabaglia, before 1750.[5]

The sense “sack, pillage” (14th century; before 1363, Matteo Villani) comes from phrases such as mettere a sacco and fare il sacco;[5][6][11][12] DELI, Nocentini and DIFIT trace it to saccomanno, a baggage carrier and then a plunderer, while DEI gives it a numbered entry of its own.[5][6][11][12] French took sac “pillage” from Italian about 1400, and English sack came from French.[11]

The figurative “great number” is in Mariano da Siena in the 15th century;[5] un sacco e una sporta, a Tuscan phrase, spread through Pinocchio.[5] In slang sacco was a thousand-lire note (Milanese sach, 1938, Italian, 1947), and in Rome it now means a thousand euros.[5][1] German Sakko “man's jacket” (late 19th century) is connected with the Italian word.[11][1]

Timeline

  • Late 12th century – Sacho appears in the declaration of Paxia.[5][7]
  • Before 1243 – Guido Faba uses it for a penitent's habit.[5]
  • 1299 – Medieval Latin saccus is recorded as a dry measure.[5]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses it for a hollow organ.[5]
  • Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses it for “pillage”.[5][11]
  • About 1400 – French sac “pillage” is borrowed from Italian.[11]
  • 15th century – Mariano da Siena uses it for “a great number”.[5]
  • 1947 – Sacco “thousand-lire note” appears in the newspaper Scandalo.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A sack, bag: a container of cloth, paper or plastic, long and open at the top: Hanno scaricato i sacchi di farina dal furgone.[7][2][13]
  2. A sackful, the contents of a sack: un sacco di mele.[7][10]
  3. (colloquial) un sacco di, a lot of, un sacco, very much: Mi è piaciuto un sacco.[7][10][1]
  4. sackcloth; the rough habit of penitents and some friars.[7][10]
  5. A bag for travel or the mountains, a rucksack, sacco a pelo, a sleeping bag.[7][10]
  6. (anatomy, botany) A sac, a hollow organ: sacco lacrimale.[10][1]
  7. Pillage, sacking of a town: mettere a sacco.[5][7]
  8. (slang) A thousand lire, (Rome) a thousand euros.[5][1]
  9. A prank in which the sheets of a bed are folded so that one cannot stretch one's legs: fare il sacco.[7][8]

Word family

  • sacca
  • sacchetto
  • saccata
  • saccone
  • saccoccia
  • saccardo
  • saccheggiare
  • insaccare
  • insaccato
  • rinsaccare
  • saccopelista
  • sacciforme
  • saccomanno
  • sacculo
  • Latin saccus
  • English sack

Usage notes

Idioms include cogliere con le mani nel sacco “to catch red-handed”, vuotare il sacco “to confess, tell all”, mettere nel sacco “to trick”, reggere il sacco “to be an accomplice” and farina del proprio sacco “one's own work”.[2][13][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  4. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t 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 h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  11. ^ a b c d e f Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  12. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3305
  13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli