setola

setola¹ crack in the skin or hoof

Etymology tree of setola¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin sequor

Latin secta

Italian setola

From the same root · setola¹

Latin assequor ← sequor

Latin cōnsequor ← sequor

Latin exsequor ← sequor

Latin īnsequor ← sequor

Latin obsequor ← sequor

Latin persequor ← sequor

Latin prōsequor ← sequor

Latin resequor ← sequor

Latin sector ← sequor

Latin secundus ← sequor

Latin sequāx ← sequor

Latin sequēla ← sequor

Latin sequēns ← sequor

Latin solsequia ← sequor

Latin subsequor ← sequor

English sect ← secta

Forms

setola f (plural setole)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the crack is of uncertain origin.^[2][3] In DELI's tentative view it is inherited from Latin secta, the feminine of sectus (“cut”), past participle of secō (“to cut”), used as a noun, with the form of setola² “bristle” laid over it.^[4][5][6] Devoto–Oli starts from an old Old Italian *sèttola, a diminutive of *setta (“a cut”), from the same Latin participle, crossed with the bristle word.^[7] The Latin neuter plural secta meant “wounds made by cutting”.^[8]

Nocentini sets this view aside for good, since the reduction of /tt/ to /t/ is unexplained.^[9] For him the crack is a metaphor from the bristle word, a fissure that looks like a bristle on a compact surface, as crine “horsehair” is in incrinare “to crack” and pelo in trapelare.^[9] DEI also derives it from the bristle word.^[10] Dialect words for a skin crack belong to the same family: Meyer-Lübke lists Modenese sedla and Sicilian serchia under saetula.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first sense recorded is the crack in a horse's hoof, which GRADIT dates before 1320 and DELI to the vernacular Pietro de' Crescenzi of about 1350.^[2][4] The sense “chap, crack in the skin” is dated by DELI to Daniello Bartoli, before 1685, and by DEI to the 16th century.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries setola named the painful cracks of the nipples of nursing women.^[12] Old writers took it for a small worm or mite that bred in the hands and nipples and caused the sore: Adriano Politi describes setola as a tiny worm “with very great torment” to women.^[12] GDLI also gives the old form sédola.^[12]

Today the word is uncommon.^[2][5] Medicine says ragade for the skin crack, and the veterinary sense is the sand crack in the wall of a horse's hoof, which may bleed and lame the animal.^[2][5][3]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – First record, of the crack in a horse's hoof.^[2][13]
• About 1350 – The vernacular Crescenzi uses the word of the horse's hoof.^[4]
• Before 1685 – Daniello Bartoli uses it of a crack in the skin.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine, uncommon) A chap or crack in the skin, especially of the hands, lips or nipples; a ragade.^[2][7][5]
2. (veterinary) A sand crack: a lengthwise split in the wall of a horse's hoof.^{[2][7][13][1]}

setola² bristle

Forms

setola f (plural setole)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the bristle is inherited from Late Latin setula, saetula, a diminutive of Latin saeta (“bristle, horsehair”) or of its popular form sēta.^[4][9][1][5] setula is recorded in Arnobius.^[10][14] The same word is Romansh seidla in the Romansh of the Surselva, sedola in Milanese and siola in Venetian.^[15][11] seta “silk” is the same Latin word without the suffix.^[4][9]

For Latin saeta de Vaan gives Proto-Italic *saitā- and a Proto-Indo-European *séh₂i-to- or *sh₂éi-to- “cord”.^[16] Most handbooks derive it from a root meaning “to bind”, with cognates such as Lithuanian saitas (“tie”).^[16] Schrijver doubts the link in meaning, but de Vaan finds “hair” an easy metaphor from “cord”.^[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bono Giamboni, who died in 1292, writes that the bristles of the horse's tail and the horsehairs are very useful to crossbowmen.^[4][12] The first sense is the stiff hair of the pig, the boar or the horse.^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the word is used of the hair on a pig's back, and of horsehair: Boccaccio's Damocles sits under a knife hung by una setola di cavallo, and in Sacchetti a man boasts of the thousands of lire he earned with the bristles of pigs.^[12][14] Cennino Cennini names brushes of pig's bristle beside those of squirrel hair.^[12]

The brush itself is called setola from Cellini, before 1571, and in printing it is the brush that cleans the ink off the type.^[4][10] In jest the word is used of a man's rough beard or bristly hair, as a Tuscan dictionary of 1863 notes.^[4] Zoology and botany use it of the stiff hairs of worms, insects and plants.^[2][5] The verb setolare, to brush clothes, is in Machiavelli.^[12]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni writes of the bristles of a horse's tail.^[4]
• 1340 – The adjective setoloso “bristly” appears in the vernacular Palladius.^[4]
• Before 1571 – Benvenuto Cellini uses setola for a bristle brush.^[4]
• 1863 – Fanfani's Tuscan dictionary records setole for a rough, unkempt beard.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bristle: one of the stiff, strong hairs of pigs, boars and some other mammals, used to make brushes and paintbrushes.^[2][7][5]
2. (loosely) Horsehair.^[2]
3. (humorous) A stiff, bristly hair of a person's head or beard: ha la barba piena di setole.^[2][7][3]
4. (zoology) A stiff filament of horny or chitinous matter on many invertebrates, a seta.^[2][5]
5. (botany) A short, stiff, pointed hair of a plant or fungus.^[2][7]
6. (printing) A brush of horsehair or pig's bristle used after printing to clean the formes of type.^[2][7][13]

Word family

• setoloso
• setolare
• setolino
• setoluto
• setolina
• setoletta
• setolaccia