sagoma

Forms

sagoma f (plural sagome)^[1] Older forms include sacoma, sàcroma and sàgama.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

DELI takes it as borrowed from Latin sacōma (“counterweight of a steelyard”), a sense the word also had in Old Italian and Medieval Latin.^[5][6] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σάκωμα (sákōma), the Doric form of σήκωμα (sḗkōma, “weight, counterweight”), which Wiktionary derives from σηκός (sēkós, “enclosure, pen”).^[7][1][8] The stress moved from the second syllable to the first, as in Oudin's dictionary of 1640.^[2][8][9] How the sense passed from a weight to a profile or template is not clear.^[5][10][2]

Following Alessio, Nocentini explains the voiced /ɡ/, a northern lenition, and the stress on the first syllable from an old verb sagomare (“to fix the right weight or measure”), recorded at Venice, of which the noun would be a back-formation.^[7] DEI dates this verb, meaning “to compare with the standard measure”, to 1227, and Devoto also calls the noun a back-formation from sagomare.^[9][11] Prati thought the word a learned import, DEI a semi-popular one.^[12][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word to 1521 in the old form sacoma.^[13] DELI's first record is a document of 1572 in a collection of artists' letters, with the sense “profile, outline of a building or object”.^[5] In the letters an architect sends tutte le sagome of the bases, capitals and cornices, marked on the drawing.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The older sense, the sliding counterweight of a steelyard, is found in Galileo and is now obsolete.^[12][4] Tommaseo thought the figurative sense of “norm, standard” grew from it.^[14][12] In architecture the word meant a moulding and its profile.^[14][8] From 1660 it was a template of wood or card for making things to a shape: C. A. Manzini speaks of working colla guida de' modelli, centine o sagome.^[5][2] Gunners called the calibre for cannonballs a sagoma.^[15][8]

In the 20th century it became a figure used as a target in shooting (1959), the cross-section of a road (1973), and in railways the sagoma limite, the largest cross-section a train and its load may have.^[5][4][16] Colloquially a sagoma is an odd, funny person: Panzini's dictionary has it in 1908 for a clumsy, badly dressed person, and by 1959 it meant a bizarre, inventive type.^[5][9]

The verb sagomare, “to give a shape or outline”, is recorded in 1891, and sagomato already in 1876.^[5] Sagomatura followed in 1907.^[5]

Timeline

• 1227 – Medieval Latin sagomare, “to compare with the standard measure”, is recorded at Venice.^[9]
• 1521 – The old form sacoma is recorded.^[13]
• 1572 – Sagoma appears in an artist's letter for the profile of a building.^[5]
• 1640 – Oudin's dictionary has sagoma.^[9][2]
• 1660 – C. A. Manzini uses the word for a template.^[5]
• 1876 – Sagomato is recorded.^[5]
• 1891 – Sagomare is recorded.^[5]
• 1908 – Panzini records sagoma for a clumsy, odd person.^[5]
• 1959 – The shooting target is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The outline or profile of an object, building or vehicle: Quella barca ha una sagoma molto slanciata.^[13][15][4]
2. The outline of a person or of a landscape feature against a background; a vague shape seen at a distance.^[13][10][16]
3. A template: a form of wood, card, metal or other material whose outline serves as a model in craft and industry, as a pattern for cutting cloth, or in a foundry.^[13][15][8]
4. A cut-out figure of a person or animal used as a target in shooting.^[13][15][4]
5. (railways, roads) sagoma limite, sagoma di carico: the loading gauge, the largest cross-section allowed for vehicles and their loads.^[4][15][3]
6. (architecture) The profile of the mouldings of a cornice.^[13][8]
7. (figurative, colloquial) An odd, funny, original person; a character: Tuo zio è proprio una sagoma!^[15][10][4]
8. (obsolete) The calibre used by gunners to measure cannonballs.^[15][10]
9. (obsolete) The counterweight of a steelyard.^[4][3]

Word family

• sagomare
• sagomatura
• sagomato
• sagomatrice
• sagomina

Related words

• Latin sacoma

Usage notes

An unrelated sagoma or sagorna, “ballast”, a dialect word from Ancona recorded in 1397, belongs with zavorra.^[9][2] Sagoma is also a form of the verb sagomare.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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)
9. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3311
10. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 383
12. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 864
13. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org