sego

Forms

sego m (plural seghi)^[1] The older form is sevo.^[2][3][4] The GDLI also gives old and dialect Old Italian sedo, Old Italian seo and Old Italian sepo.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēbum (“tallow”), the popular outcome beside the learned sebo.^[2][3][6][1] Intervocalic /b/ weakened to /v/, giving sevo, and the /v/ then became /g/ as in ugola from ūvula.^[2][7][8][9] Devoto compared pargolo from parvulus, but DELI notes that the /g/ there is not between vowels.^[2][7]

The same word is French suif, Occitan seu, Catalan seu, Spanish sebo, Portuguese sebo, Sardinian seu and Romanian seu.^[3][10]

Nocentini compares the Latin word with Old High German seifa and Old English sāpe (“soap”).^[3] De Vaan notes that the Latin word is recorded too early to be a loan from Germanic.^[11] A root Proto-Indo-European *seyb- (“to drip”) has been proposed, but a PIE /b/ is very rare and the meanings do not clearly match, so he leaves the word without an etymology.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is sevo in Giamboni, before 1292, in a recipe that boils liquid pitch with lard or tallow.^[2][5] The form sego is first found in 1619, in M. Buonarroti the Younger.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian tallow greased bodies and fed fire: Boccaccio's contenders anoint themselves with oil, tallow or soap, and in a translation the besieged throw fire on the Roman siege engines with tallow and pitch.^[5] Its main use was for cheap candles, and Tommaseo records illuminazione a sego and the Tuscan saying l'è stata a sego, said of someone left disappointed in a scheme.^[12]

Sego has become the usual form, while sevo is preferred in technical and chemical language.^[8][4] A dish that sa di sego tastes unpleasantly of fat.^[4][8]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Giamboni writes sevo.^[2]
• 1476 – Sevoso appears in Cristoforo Landino.^[2]
• Before 1597 – Soderini writes segoso.^[2]
• 1619 – Buonarroti the Younger writes sego.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. tallow: hard yellowish fat of cattle, sheep or horses, used to make candles and soap and as a lubricant: una candela di sego.^[6][4][13]
2. albero del sego: the tallow tree, a tropical plant whose seeds give a fat for candles.^[9][6]

Word family

• segoso
• rassegare
• insegare
• segaiuolo

Related words

• sevo
• sebo
• sapone
• Latin sebum

Usage notes

GRADIT has a second sego, an obsolete literary variant of the pronoun seco “with him, with her”.^[6][14] Sego is also the first person singular present of segare “to saw”.^[6] The plural seghi is rare.^[8][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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)
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. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it