scotolare

Forms

scotolare (first-person singular present scòtolo, first-person singular past historic scotolài, past participle scotolàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old form is Old Italian scotulare.^[2] Medieval Latin texts have scotulare at Castro in the 15th century, “to beat with a mallet”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excutulāre, an iterative of Latin excutere (“to shake out”), the source of scuotere.^[4][2][1][5] The same Vulgar Latin verb gave Romanian scutura, Sicilian scutulari and the Abruzzese and Calabrian forms, with many derivatives in the southern dialects.^[6][3][1] DELI treats the verb under the tool scotola.^[7]

Diez derived it from Old High German scutilōn (“to shake”), and Körting followed him.^[8][9] Zaccaria rejected that and saw no need for a Germanic origin: to him the noun scotola came first, formed from the verb for “to shake”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the old form scotulare to about 1325, and Devoto–Oli to the first half of the 14th century.^[2][5] DELI's first record, from Tommaso di Silvestro in the 15th century, is already the technical sense: to beat flax or hemp with the scutching blade to free the fibre from the woody parts.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed a term of flax and hemp working.^[7][2] Tommaseo quotes Fagiuoli's line on the woman who scolds the flax dealer if her flax is not well scutched, and the Malmantile notes, where flax is beaten and scutched to clean it of its shives.^[10] Derivatives followed: scotolatura in the 16th or 17th century (Galileo), and scotolatrice, the scutching machine, in the 19th.^[4][3]

In the 17th century the verb also meant simply “to shake again and again”, as a frequentative of scuotere; the Malmantile shakes someone's hair with a wooden knife.^[3][10] The Treccani extends it to tobacco leaves.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1325 – Scotulare is first recorded.^[2]
• 15th century – Tommaso di Silvestro uses scotolare of flax and hemp.^[7]
• 15th century – Medieval Latin scotulare is recorded at Castro.^[3]
• 16th century – Soderini uses the verb, and scotolatura appears.^[3][4]
• 1545 – Zingarelli's date for the first record.^[12]
• 19th century – Scotolatrice names the scutching machine.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, textiles) To scutch flax or hemp: to beat it with the scotola or a machine so that the fibre comes away from the woody parts: scotolare la canapa raccolta.^{[2][5][13][12]}
2. (transitive) To beat and shake tobacco leaves in the same way.^[11]

Word family

• scotola
• scotolatura
• scotolatore
• scotolatrice

Related words

• scuotere
• riscuotere
• Latin excutio
• Romanian scutura

Usage notes

A synonym is gramolare.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3422
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse