saliva

Forms

saliva f (plural salive)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian scialiva and Old Italian sciliva, which Tommaseo heard in popular speech,^[2][3] and Ariosto's masculine salivo.^[4]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin salīva (“spittle”).^[5][6] Wiktionary takes it as inherited.^[1] The popular forms Old Italian scialiva and Old Italian sciliva stand beside it.^[7][3]

The Latin word continued in French salive, Occitan saliva, Catalan saliva, Spanish saliva and Sardinian salia, and in Portuguese seiva (“sap”) and Old Galician-Portuguese saiva.^[8][9]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain, and it has no sure cognates.^[5][8] De Vaan connects it, if at all, with words for grey or dirty yellow: Irish sal (“dirt”), Welsh halawg (“dirty”), Old High German salo, Old Norse sǫlr (“dirty yellow”) and Russian соло́вый (solóvyj, “light bay”), from Proto-Indo-European *solH-u̯-.^[10][1] Latin would then have built it on an older adjective.^[10][1] Wiktionary also allows an expressive or imitative origin, comparing Ancient Greek σίαλον (síalon, “spittle”).^[1] Devoto took it as an adjective used as a noun, perhaps from a phrase for “water that rises”, like Italian sorgiva.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli date the first record to 1287.^[12][7] Bonvesin da la Riva tells the reader to turn aside when sneezing azò ke dra saliva no zese sor la mensa (“so that no saliva falls on the table”).^[6] DELI's first record is in Boccaccio, 1341–1342.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The forms scialiva and sciliva were common in the Middle Ages.^[2][6] Tommaseo marked them obsolete in writing but still alive among the people.^[2][6] The word could also mean salivation, the secretion itself.^[6]

Learned derivatives followed in the medical language of the 17th and 18th centuries: salivale (1664, Redi), salivazione (1708–1712, Magalotti) and the verb salivare (1745, earlier scialivare); insalivare is from 1920.^[5][8] The familiar phrase attaccato con la saliva describes something joined so badly that it will not hold, but attaccato con lo sputo is more common.^[7][3]

Timeline

• 1287 – Date of first record in Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli.^[12][7]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses saliva.^[5]
• 1664 – Redi uses salivale.^[5]
• 1708–1712 – Magalotti uses salivazione.^[5]
• Before 1730 – Vallisneri uses the verb scialivare.^[5]
• 1745 – The verb salivare is recorded.^[5]
• 1920 – Insalivare is recorded.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. saliva, spittle: the colourless, slightly stringy liquid that moistens the mouth.^[13][7][14]
2. (physiology) The secretion of the salivary glands, which helps chewing, swallowing and digestion.^{[13][12][15][3]}

Word family

• salivazione
• salivare
• insalivare
• salivale
• salivoso

Related words

• French salive
• Latin saliva

Usage notes

Learned compounds referring to saliva use the Greek-based element scialo-.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
3. ^ 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)
4. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 867
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse