salvia

Forms

salvia f (plural salvie)^[1] An old dialect form is salbia.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin salvia, derived from salvus (“healthy, safe”) because of the healing powers attributed to the plant.^[3][4][5][6] DEI notes that the Latin name is found in Pliny and that the plant appears among those that Charlemagne had grown.^[7]

The word is panromance: French sauge, Occitan saubia, Catalan salvia, Spanish salvia, Portuguese salva, Sardinian salvia and Romanian salbie.^[4][8] It passed into Old High German salbeia, whence German Salbei.^[4][7] DEI derives the German word from an early medieval form Medieval Latin salvegia.^[7]

The Latin adjective goes back to a Proto-Italic adjective for “whole, healthy”; de Vaan connects it with Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos, “whole”) and an Indo-European word for “whole”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the poem Il Fiore (1280–1310), for the aromatic plant with wrinkled, downy grey leaves used in cooking and medicine.^[3] DEI dates it to the 14th century, in the Italian translation of Pier de' Crescenzi, but has derived adjectives for dishes made with sage already in the 13th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The plant has been used both in the kitchen and in folk medicine since antiquity, and the name has kept that sense.^[6][4] The 14th-century Latin of Italy had a verb salviare, to make an infusion of sage, and salviacum, wine flavoured with sage.^[7] In botany the name was extended to the whole genus Salvia of the mint family, with several hundred species, and to its ornamental members such as salvia splendens, with red flowers.^[10][6][11]

Timeline

• 1280–1310 – Il Fiore has the first record.^[3]
• 1300s – The Italian translation of Pier de' Crescenzi uses the word.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. sage (Salvia officinalis), a plant with velvety grey-green aromatic leaves and violet flowers, used in cooking and folk medicine: patate al forno con rosmarino e salvia.^{[5][6][11][1]}
2. (botany) The genus Salvia of the Labiate, and the common name of its various species.^[5][10][11]

Related words

• salvo
• salute
• Latin salvus
• French sauge

Usage notes

Species names include salvia dei prati (meadow sage), salvia sclarea (clary) and salvia splendente or splendida, grown for its red flowers.^[5][11][6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3326
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli