scopa

Forms

scopa f (plural scope, diminutive scopìna or scopìno m or scopétta, augmentative (card game) scopóne, pejorative scopàccia)^[1] Old Italian texts also have the plurals scove, iscope and ischope.^[2] An old variant is scoppa.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin scōpa, the name of a shrub, whose plural scōpae meant a broom made of its twigs.^[4][5][6] Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti gloss the Latin word as “twig”.^[7][8] The broom was so called because it was made of the branches of this plant.^[4][9]

The word survives in the western Romance languages: Old French escouve, Old Occitan escoba, Spanish escoba and Portuguese escova (“brush”).^[5][10] In northern France it was wholly replaced by French balai.^[10][11] Battisti and Alessio add that the Latin word passed into Irish.^[11]

Nocentini assigns scōpa to a pre-Latin substrate and puts it in the same family as scāpus (“stalk”),^[5] and Zingarelli and the GDLI call it probably Mediterranean.^[9][3] Wiktionary instead derives it from Proto-Italic *skōpā and Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂p- (“to prop”), with the cognates Ancient Greek σκήπτω (skḗptō, “to prop up”) and English shaft.^[1]

The card game is named after the broom: a player who holds a card matching those on the table takes them all and so sweeps the table clean.^[4][5][9] DELI thinks the game probably came from Naples, since Andreoli's Neapolitan dictionary records both the game and its variant scopone.^[4] GRADIT gives the game a headword of its own, formed from scopare.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Bono Giamboni's Florentine translation of Vegetius, before 1292.^[2] DELI dates the plant name to about 1350, in the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi, and the broom to Giovanni Villani, before 1348.^[4] Crescenzi describes the plant as “a very small shrub, rather like the juniper”, whose hard, knotty root made excellent cups (La scopa è arbuscello molto piccolo, quasi simigliante al ginepro).^[3][13]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the shrub, chiefly Erica arborea and Erica scoparia, its dried brushwood used as fuel, the broom made of it, the broom for cleaning out an oven, and a whip of twigs.^[2] Whipping with such a bundle was a punishment in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.^[12][9][14] In 16th-century sailors' language scopa was also a north wind, which sweeps the dirt away.^[11][15]

Compounds of the type scopamare, a long narrow sail, and the 16th-century nicknames scopachiassi and scopamestieri were formed with the plural, like those with spazza-.^[11]

The card game appears in the 1860s: Alphonse Daudet, in Lettres de mon moulin (1869), writes of Corsicans who spent whole days in the kitchen playing d'interminables parties de scopa, and Tommaseo–Bellini records the game in Italian in 1873.^[4] The longer scopone, in which all the cards are dealt at once, is recorded from 1887.^[4] English has scopa as the name of the game from 1965.^[16]

Modern Italian has the scopa elettrica, a light vacuum cleaner, and the broom of curling.^[17][3] Figuratively a war or an epidemic that sweeps lives away can be called a scopa.^[12][6]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – first record, in Bono Giamboni's translation of Vegetius.^[2]
• Before 1320 – GRADIT dates the plant name.^[12]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses scopa for the broom.^[4]
• About 1350 – the Italian Crescenzi uses it for the shrub.^[4]
• 16th century – scopa is a sailors' word for the north wind.^[11]
• 1869 – Daudet mentions Corsicans playing scopa in French.^[4]
• 1873 – Tommaseo–Bellini records the card game.^[4][12]
• 1887 – scopone is recorded in Andreoli's Neapolitan dictionary.^[4]
• 1965 – English scopa (the game) is first recorded.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. broom: a tool for sweeping floors, a bunch of heather or broomcorn twigs or of synthetic bristles fixed to a long handle: Passa la scopa in cucina prima di cena.^[12][7][8]
2. (botany) heath: the common name of several species of Erica, especially Erica scoparia and the tree heath Erica arborea.^[12][7][17]
3. (card games) A card game for two players or two pairs with a pack of forty cards, in which each player tries to capture cards from the table equal in value to the card played.^[12][9][16]
4. (card games) In that game, a capture that clears the table and scores a point: fare scopa.^[12][9]
5. (sport) In curling, the broom used to sweep the ice in front of the stone.^[12][17]
6. (figurative) A calamity, such as a war or an epidemic, that sweeps lives away.^[12]
7. (literary) Bristly, unkempt hair or beard.^[12]
8. (history) A punishment of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a flogging with a whip of twigs.^[12][9]

Word family

• scopare
• scopone
• scopino
• scopetta
• scopata
• scopatore
• scopaio
• scopeto
• scopiera
• scopatura
• scopista

Related words

• Latin scōpa
• Spanish escoba

Usage notes

Magro come una scopa or come un manico di scopa means “very thin”, and aver mangiato il manico della scopa is said of someone who walks stiffly and haughtily.^[12][17][7] The proverb scopa nuova spazza bene tre giorni says that a newcomer is zealous only at first.^[7][6]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 18, 196
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3414
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 897
16. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
17. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana