seppia

Forms

seppia f (plural seppie)^[1] Older forms include sepia, sepa, sepe, seppa and siepe.^[2][3] Venice has Venetian sepa.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēpia (“cuttlefish”), which is from Ancient Greek σηπία (sēpía).^[5][6][7][1] Devoto starts from Vulgar Latin *sepja, whose cluster -pj- after the stressed syllable was doubled to -ppi- as is normal in Italian.^[8] The older learned form sepia was still used in the 16th century, by Mattioli.^[9][10]

The same Latin word gave French seiche, Occitan sipia, Catalan sepia, Spanish jibia and Portuguese siba;^[6][4] Spanish also has a learned sepia.^[6][4]

DELI calls the Greek word of uncertain origin.^[5] Nocentini and Treccani connect it with Ancient Greek σήπω (sḗpō, “to rot”), because of the animal's ink or its smell,^[6][3] while Beekes, as Wiktionary reports him, allows that it may be a Pre-Greek word.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates the word to the 14th century, in a cookery book (Libro di cucina), with the sense of the edible marine cephalopod with an oval, flattened body and ten arms around the mouth.^[5] An anonymous Tuscan cookery text of the period tells the cook to open the cuttlefish, take out the ink and keep it, then chop and fry the flesh.^[2] DEI names a 14th-century record in Bencivenni.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Renaissance writers treat the cuttlefish both as food and as a natural curiosity: Pulci lists it among the creatures of the sea, and its bone (osso di seppia) appears in recipes for tooth powder.^[2] From the 19th century the verb seppiare meant to polish wood or metal by rubbing with cuttlebone.^[6][11]

The ink gave a colour name: Tommaseo's dictionary of 1873 records seppia for the black of cuttlefish ink, used as a masculine noun, and phrases such as tinta seppia and carta seppia are dated to 1960, with seppia as an invariable adjective after its noun for a shade between grey and brown.^[5][12] Seppiato, "sepia-coloured", followed in 1983.^[6]

Writers compared the cuttlefish's cloud of ink to anger, boredom or obscurity; in naval language fare la seppia is to lay a dense smoke screen to hide a formation of ships.^[2][13][14]

Timeline

• 14th century – Seppia is recorded in a Libro di cucina.^[5]
• 16th century – Mattioli writes the learned form sepia.^[9]
• 1873 – Tommaseo records seppia as the colour of cuttlefish ink, and the verb seppiare.^[5][6]
• 1960 – Tinta seppia and carta seppia appear in a dictionary.^[5]
• 1983 – The adjective seppiato is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cuttlefish: an edible marine cephalopod with an oval, flattened body, two side fins, an internal chalky shell and ten arms around the mouth, which squirts a dark ink when threatened: Stasera cuciniamo le seppie con i piselli.^[7][13][15]
2. (zoology) The common name of the molluscs of the family Sepiidae, especially Sepia officinalis.^[7][13]
3. (masculine, invariable) sepia: a dark brown shade between grey and black, like cuttlefish ink.^[7][12][1]

Adjective

1. (invariable, after the noun) Of a colour between grey and brown: una vecchia foto seppia.^[5][7][15]

Word family

• seppiare
• seppiato
• seppiola
• seppietta
• seppiolina

Related words

• French seiche

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include nero di seppia (the ink, also used in cooking), osso di seppia (cuttlebone) and fare la seppia (to make a smoke screen).^[7][13][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, p. 18, 700
3. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 401
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3457
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 910
12. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli