scrofa

Forms

scrofa f (plural scrofe)^[1] An old variant is Old Italian scroffa.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin scrōfa (“sow”), a rustic and dialectal word of uncertain origin.^[3][4][5][1] The ⟨f⟩ between vowels is foreign to Latin and points to an Italic dialect, probably Oscan; the corresponding Latin form scroba is found only in late glosses.^[6][7][8]

The same word is Romanian scroafă, Romansh scrua, Friulian scrove and Venetian scrova.^[6][9][7] The sense moved to the female part of a screw in Old French escroue, modern French écrou, and in southern Italian dialects; from the same source Nocentini derives German Schraube (“screw”) and, through Old French, the English word screw.^[6][9][7] DEI compares Spanish puerca and Portuguese porca, which mean both “sow” and “nut”.^[7] Meyer-Lübke explained the shift by a crossing with Latin scrobis (“ditch”).^[9]

De Vaan takes the Latin word from a non-Roman dialect form, Proto-Italic *skrofā (“scratcher, digger”), from Proto-Indo-European *skrobʰh₂-, since pigs are often named for their rooting; he rejects a borrowing from Ancient Greek γρομφάς (grompʰás, “old sow”), recorded by Hesychius.^[10][1] Nocentini rejects the “digger” explanation and instead takes the Latin words for “ditch” and “sow” to be one word, through a sense “vagina”, like porca “furrow” and “sow”; that sense would also explain the screw nut.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Iacopone, before 1306, in the sense “female of the pig or of the wild boar”.^[3] Iacopone writes of a hair shirt made of scrofe toserate, shorn sows.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Dante's Inferno a damned soul's white bag bears a fat blue sow, which Tommaseo connects with the Scrovini, a noble Paduan family, in Venetian Scrova.^[11] The insulting sense, a woman of loose morals, is recorded in Belcari, before 1484.^[3]

An older and now regional sense is “scrofula”, a swelling of the neck: the TLIO records scrofa only in that medical sense, in the Tuscan translation of Crescenzi, and derives it from scrofola.^[12] The GDLI derives this sense from the Latin plural scrofae, from the likeness to a disease of pigs.^[2]

Timeline

• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses scrofa for the sow.^[3]
• 14th century – The Tuscan translation of Crescenzi uses scrofa for scrofula.^[12]
• Before 1484 – Belcari uses it for a woman of loose morals.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sow: an adult female of the domestic pig.^{[4][13][14][15]}
2. An adult female of the wild boar (cinghiale).^[4][14][5]
3. (vulgar, derogatory) A woman of loose morals, a slut; often as an insult.^{[4][13][14][15]}
4. (obsolete or regional) Scrofula.^[4][15][2]

Word family

• scrofetta
• scrofaccia

Related words

• scrofola
• porca
• Latin scrōfa

Usage notes

Troia is a synonym in both the literal and the insulting sense, the latter more vulgar.^[14][15] The diminutive is scrofetta and the pejorative scrofaccia.^[5][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3427
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 397
9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ 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)
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana