scabbia

Forms

scabbia f (plural scabbie)^[1] Old forms include scabbie, scabia and scabie.^[2] An old and regional variant is scaggia.^[3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin scabia, a Late Latin form of classical Latin scabiēs (“roughness; itch; mange”).^[4][5][6][1] The Latin noun is derived from scabō (“to scratch”).^[4][5][7][8] Devoto explains the double ⟨bb⟩ as the doubling of ⟨b⟩ before ⟨i⟩ after the stress.^[9]

The Late Latin form also gave Romanian zgaibă (“boil”), Friulian sgabie and Abruzzese forms, and Albanian zgjebe and Basque ezcabia belong to the same group.^[10][11][5] Weigand thought the Romanian word could come from Albanian.^[10]

The Latin verb has cognates in Lithuanian skõbti (“to plane”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (skaban, “to shave”) and Old High German scaban (“to plane”), which de Vaan traces to an iterative stem Proto-Indo-European *skobʰ-.^[8][5] Nocentini also compares Ancient Greek σκάπτω (skáptō, “to dig”) and Old English sceafan (“to scrape”), the source of English shave, but de Vaan finds the Greek verb too remote in meaning.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, for the itching skin disease: Giamboni tells how the Egyptians, suffering from scabbie and other ills, were told by their gods to drive Moses and his people out of their land.^[4][2] In the Inferno Dante shows the falsifiers tearing at their scabbia with their nails, as a knife scrapes the scales off a fish.^[2][12]

Semantic evolution

Dante also used the word for the dry, wasted skin of the gluttons in Purgatory, where Forese Donati begs Dante not to stare at the asciutta scabbia that discolours his skin.^[13][14] From the 14th century it took a moral sense: Petrarch writes that blind desire al corpo sano ha procurato scabbia (“has brought scabies to the healthy body”), and Machiavelli calls avarice the vice che genera scabbia nel viver vostro.^[14][6][15]

Old writers treated it as a curable skin complaint: the Italian Crescenzi recommends a plaster of barley and strong vinegar for ulcerated scabbia.^[12] The plant scabbiosa got its name because it was once believed to cure the disease.^[16] Tommaseo, following Fanfani, distinguished scabbia from rogna by its smaller and drier pustules.^[12] Modern medicine names the mite that causes it acaro della scabbia (Sarcoptes scabiei), and phrases such as scabbia da lana di vetro and scabbia dei nichelatori name occupational dermatitis.^[14][6] In plant pathology scabbia is a disease caused by fungi or bacteria that leaves scab-like lesions on stems, leaves, fruits and tubers, as in scabbia della patata.^[6][3]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses scabbie for the skin disease.^[4][2]
• c. 1340 – Scabbioso “suffering from scabies” appears in the Italian translation of Palladius.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) scabies: an itching skin disease caused by a mite whose female burrows into the skin to lay its eggs; rogna.^{[6][15][17][13][1]}
2. (by extension, uncommon) Any disease that makes the skin dry and scaly.^{[6][15][3][1]}
3. (medicine) With a qualifier, an occupational dermatitis: scabbia da lana di vetro, scabbia dei nichelatori.^[3][14][6]
4. (plant pathology) A plant disease caused by fungi or bacteria, with scab-like growths on stems, leaves, fruits or tubers: scabbia della patata.^{[6][15][17][3]}
5. (figurative, literary) Moral corruption or decay.^[6][15][3]

Word family

• scabbioso
• scabbiatura
• antiscabbioso

Related words

• rogna
• scabbiosa
• Latin scabiēs
• Romanian zgaibă

Usage notes

Scabbia and rogna are synonyms in medicine.^[18][17][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3359
12. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ 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
16. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 877
17. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli