Etymologically
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sale

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Pronunciation

Forms

sale m (plural sali)[1] In northern Italy and in Ladin the word is often feminine, as in much of Gallo-Romance, in Ibero-Romance and in Romanian.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sāl (“salt”) through its accusative, a Latin word of Indo-European origin.[5][6][7][1] The same word is French sel, Occitan sal, Catalan sal, Spanish sal, Portuguese sal, Sardinian sale and Romanian sare: every Romance branch except Dalmatian has it.[6][4]

The Proto-Romance word was masculine, but in a large part of the Romance area it became feminine at an early date, together with the words for gall, milk, sea and honey.[4] The masculine survives in Sardinian and spread again later into areas the feminine had taken.[4]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *sāls and a Proto-Indo-European *séh₂ls (“salt”), with the ablaut of the Indo-European paradigm still visible in Latin.[8] Its relatives include Ancient Greek ἅλς (háls, “salt; sea”), Old Irish salann, Latvian sāls, Old Church Slavonic соль (solĭ) and, from an extended stem, Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌻𐍄 (salt), Old High German salz and English salt.[8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record DELI gives is in the Sienese Matasala of 1233, with the sense “sodium chloride”, the salt used to season and preserve food.[5][7]

Semantic evolution

Already in Latin sal also meant wit, and Italian took up both figurative senses early: “good sense, judgement” in Brunetto Latini before 1294 and “wit, sharpness” in the vernacular Albertano around 1300.[5][9] In chemistry the word was extended to any compound formed from an acid and a base, first in the name sale armoniaco in Francesco Balducci Pegolotti before 1347.[5][7] Literary Italian also used it for the sea, as Dante does: metter potete ben per l'alto sale / vostro navigio (“you may well launch your ship on the deep salt”).[7][10]

The phrase restare di sale, to be struck dumb, goes back to the biblical story of Lot's wife, turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom.[5][9] Dante's line Tu proverai sì come sa di sale / lo pane altrui (“you will learn how salty another's bread tastes”) gave sapere di sale, to be bitter and hard to bear.[9][11] Avere sale in zucca, literally “to have salt in the pumpkin”, means to have good sense.[7][9] In Tuscan and in Rome salare la scuola is to play truant, like marinare la scuola, which Prati explains as “putting it in salt” to keep it for later.[12][5]

The derivatives are old: the verb salare around 1340, salato before 1294, and salgemma, rock salt, named for the gem-like shape of its crystals, in the 14th century.[5][6] Saliera, the salt cellar, is French salière.[5]

Timeline

  • 973 – Medieval Latin salina, a salt pan, is recorded at Ravenna.[5]
  • 1233 – Sale “salt” appears in the Sienese Matasala.[5]
  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses the word for good sense.[5]
  • Around 1300 – The vernacular Albertano uses it for wit.[5]
  • Before 1347 – Pegolotti writes of sale armoniaco, the first chemical sense.[5]
  • Around 1350 – Salgemmo, later salgemma, rock salt, is recorded.[5]
  • 1701 – The verb salificare, to turn into a salt, is recorded.[5]
  • 1855 – Fanfani records salare “to play truant”.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. salt, sodium chloride, the white crystalline substance used to season and preserve food: Ho dimenticato di mettere il sale nell'acqua della pasta.[7][13][10]
  2. (chemistry) A salt in general, a compound formed by the reaction of an acid with a base.[7][13][9]
  3. (chiefly in the plural) Smelling salts, once used to revive someone who has fainted.[7][14]
  4. (figurative) Good sense, judgement: avere sale in zucca, to have one's head screwed on.[7][10][9]
  5. (figurative) Wit, sharpness of speech or writing, and in the plural a witty remark: una commedia senza sale.[7][10][11]
  6. (literary) The sea.[7][10][9]

Word family

  • salare
  • salato
  • saliera
  • salina
  • salino
  • salinità
  • salgemma
  • salatura
  • salagione
  • salatino
  • salificare
  • salifero
  • saligno
  • salume
  • insalata
  • salso
  • salsa
  • Latin sāl
  • French sel

Usage notes

Sale is also the plural of sala “hall, room”.[1] In commercial language the English word sale (“sale”), plural sales, has been used since 1989, mostly in fixed phrases.[10] The Latin phrase cum grano salis (“with a grain of salt”) is more common than its Italian rendering con un grano di sale.[9][11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3316
  3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 17, 393
  4. ^ a b c d Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 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 k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  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 Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  12. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 867
  13. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli