scialbare

Forms

scialbare (first-person singular present sciàlbo, first-person singular past historic scialbài, past participle scialbàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old spellings include Old Italian iscialbare, and the participle appears as salbati.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin exalbāre (“to make white”), formed with the prefix ex- from albus (“white”).^[3][4][5][1] DELI, Nocentini and Devoto–Oli call the Latin verb Late Latin, and Körting cites it from Tertullian, while the LEI takes it as classical.^{[3][4][6][7][8]} GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti read the prefix as intensive.^[5][9]

The LEI finds popular outcomes of the Latin verb only in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula: Catalan aixalbar and Spanish enjalbegar, both meaning “to whitewash”.^[8][10] Every Italian form has lost the initial ⟨e-⟩, and the cluster /ks/ has become /ʃ/, written ⟨sc⟩.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1289, where the verb means to cover a wall with plaster.^[2] DELI's first date is about 1350, in the vernacular translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, with the sense “to whiten, to plaster”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Besides plastering walls, Old Italian used the pronominal verb figuratively for hiding vice behind a false show of virtue, being a hypocrite.^[2] The LEI collects a wide range of transferred uses: “to dress elegantly” in the 14th century, “to paint one's face with heavy cosmetics” from Leon Battista Alberti (1441) on, and in the 20th century, in Pratolini and Bacchelli, the shading of a face by first down or the softening of a fault.^[8]

The participle shortened to scialbo, first in Dante for a pale complexion and, from 1861 (Luigi Settembrini) for a person without character, became far more common than the verb.^[3][8] Today scialbare is rare and literary, or regional in Tuscany.^[11][6][1]

Timeline

• 1289 – A Florentine document has the verb for plastering.^[2]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses the short participle scialbo for “pale”.^[3]
• c. 1350 – The translation of Crescenzi uses scialbare “to whitewash, plaster”.^[3]
• 1441 – Leon Battista Alberti uses it for covering the face with cosmetics.^[8]
• 1861 – Settembrini uses scialbo for a person without character.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, now rare or regional) To whitewash or plaster walls with slaked lime diluted in water: Prima di Pasqua scialbarono tutta la cantina.^{[5][6][12][9]}
2. (rare) To whiten, make paler; to cover a surface with a thin coat of colour.^[12][1]

Word family

• scialbo
• scialbore
• scialbatura
• riscialbare

Related words

• albo
• Latin albus
• Spanish enjalbegar

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b c d e f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 21, 886
9. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)