schiena

Forms

schiena f (plural schiene)^[1] Old and dialect forms are Old Italian schena and Old Italian schina.^[2] Popular Tuscan had stiena, used by Lorenzo de' Medici.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Lombardic *skëna, a Germanic word for a long, narrow bone, the shin.^{[5][6][7][3][8]} The Germanic noun is Old High German scina (“shin; needle”) and survives in German Schiene (“splint, rail”) and German Schienbein (“shinbone”), and a relative is English shin.^[8][9][1] Its sense passed from “narrow bone” to “backbone” and then “back”.^[8][10] Frankish gave French échine, and the word is also Occitan esquena, Catalan esquena and Spanish esquina (“corner”).^[8][10][3]

The diphthong ⟨ie⟩ is unexpected beside the other forms: Venetian schena, Dalmatian scaina and Sardinian ischina.^[3][10][8] Castellani explained it by an inserted ⟨l⟩, *sklena, which matches Lombard s'céna in Lombardy, and on this account DELI calls the Lombardic origin less certain.^{[11][8][3][2]} DEI notes that the word replaced Latin dorsum (“back”) in most Italian dialects, as far south as Bari and the border of Lazio and Campania.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first records are in Il Fiore (1280–1310) and in Rustico di Filippo (before 1300), in the sense “back of the body”;^[11][8][7] Nocentini dates the word to the first half of the 13th century, and Zingarelli to 1282.^[11][8][7] In the Inferno the sinners in the boiling pitch show their backs like dolphins that signal to sailors with the arch of their back (“coll'arco della schiena”).^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the beginning the word meant both the human back and the back of an animal, from the shoulders to the rump.^[4][2] The derivative schienale meant the back in general about 1350, then a cut of meat (before 1492), the backplate of armour (1663) and the back of a chair (1778).^[11] In geography the word names a rounded mountain ridge between two slopes.^[5][6]

Many phrases use it: lavoro di schiena for heavy work, rompersi la schiena for working too hard, voltare la schiena for running away or abandoning someone, and colpire alla schiena for a treacherous blow.^[7][12][13] A road or bridge a schiena d'asino is raised in the middle.^[7][13]

Timeline

• 1280–1310 – Schiena appears in Il Fiore.^[11]
• Before 1300 – Rustico di Filippo uses the word.^[11]
• c. 1350 – Schienale is used for the back in Crescenzi's translation.^[11]
• Before 1749 – Schienata, a blow with the back, is recorded.^[11][8]
• 1778 – Schienale is used for the back of a seat.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The back, the rear part of the human trunk from the neck to the waist: Ho un dolore alla schiena.^[5][6][14]
2. The spine: Mi è corso un brivido lungo la schiena.^[5][13]
3. The back of an animal: viaggiare a schiena di mulo.^[5][6][14]
4. A cut of meat from the back of a slaughtered animal.^[5]
5. (geography) A rounded mountain ridge dividing two slopes.^[5][6][14]
6. (historical) The backplate of armour (also schienale).^[6][12]

Word family

• schienale
• schienata

Related words

• dorso
• spina
• stinco
• French échine
• English shin

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3388
4. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
10. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse