secchia

Forms

secchia f (plural secchie)^[1] The old form is Old Italian sechia, and the old dialect one Old Italian segia.^[2][3] In Lombard and Ticinese it is ⟨segia⟩.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *sicla, the Vulgar Latin form of Latin situla (“bucket”).^[3][4][5][1] This form is in the Appendix Probi, and Medieval Latin siclum is found in Agnellus of Ravenna, “a bronze vessel which we commonly call siclum”.^[2][3] Tommaseo says Muratori has examples of this form from the 6th century.^[6] The loss of the vowel and the change of /tl/ to /kl/ are regular, as in vecchia from vetula.^[7][6]

The same word is Ladin sedla, Friulian segle, French seille, Old Occitan selha and Portuguese selha, and the masculine secchio goes back to situlus.^[8][9] The French word seau comes from the diminutive *sitellum.^[9] The Latin word was borrowed as Middle High German sīdel, whence German Seidel (“tankard”).^[9]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[3][10][11] Nocentini takes it from sitiō (“to be thirsty”), as a vessel that wants filling with water.^[9] Devoto found no reliable Indo-European connections, and Wiktionary mentions a root shared with Lithuanian and Middle Irish words for a sieve.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini dates the word to 1289, GRADIT to before 1320 and DELI to about 1350, in the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi, where it is the bucket for drawing water.^[9][4][3] An early Prato account pays for una sechia.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio's Tofano, hearing a stone fall into the well, runs to it with the bucket and rope.^[2][6] From the vessel the word came to mean its contents, una secchia d'acqua, and the expressions piovere a secchie, to rain in buckets, and the Tuscan fare come le secchie, to go up and down.^[5][11][12] It was also an old measure for liquids and dry goods, of varying size: about 10.7 litres in the Veneto and 21.3 at Parma, according to the Treccani.^[3][13] The old proverb tante volte al pozzo va la secchia, ch'ella vi lascia il manico e l'orecchia is now rare.^[13]

The school-slang sense, a pupil of limited gifts who gets on by hard work, DELI dates to 1963.^[3] Lurati traced secchia and secchione to Lombard segià “to study hard”, a playful swap of segia “bucket” for gamela in the verb sgamelà “to toil”.^[3][2] Nocentini, following Tomasin, prefers the plainer image of the well bucket going up and down, already in Tuscan secchione “one who bustles about”, recorded by Fanfani.^[9]

Timeline

• 1289 – Nocentini's date for the first record.^[9]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses secchione, a large bucket.^[3]
• 1324–1328 – Secchio is first recorded.^[9]
• c. 1350 – Secchia appears in the Italian Crescenzi.^[3]
• Before 1536 – Marin Sanudo uses sechia as a measure.^[3]
• 1561 – Secchia as a measure appears in A. Citolini.^[3]
• 1907 – Secchione “swot” appears in Lombard regional Italian.^[3]
• 1963 – Secchia “swot” is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bucket, a tapered vessel with a semicircular handle, used above all to draw water: la secchia è caduta nel pozzo.^[4][5][14]
2. The amount a bucket holds: una secchia di sabbia.^[4][5][14]
3. (historical) An old unit of measurement for liquids and dry goods, used before the metric system.^[4][5][12]
4. (school slang) A swot, a secchione.^[4][15][11]

Word family

• secchio
• secchiello
• secchione
• secchiata
• secchiaio

Related words

• Latin situla
• French seau

Usage notes

In everyday use secchio is more common.^[13] Set phrases: piovere a secchie, to rain heavily;^[11][12] a secchie, in great quantity.^[11][12] The draga a secchie is a bucket dredger.^[4][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 18, 394
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse