sirocchia

Forms

sirocchia f (plural sirocchie)^[1] Old and literary variants include serocchia, sorocchia, Old Italian serochia, Old Italian seroca, Old Italian sirochia and Old Italian sirocca.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sororcula (“little sister”), a diminutive of Latin soror (“sister”).^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]} DEI also allows a formation from soror with the suffix -occhio, as in ginocchio.^[10] The Latin diminutive is in Plautus.^[11] The same Latin word gave sorella and suora.^[12][7]

Latin soror goes back to Proto-Italic *swesōr and Proto-Indo-European *swésōr (“sister”), the source of Lithuanian sesuo.^[13] It may be a compound of *swe “self” and a word for “woman”.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the word before 1292, and DEI to the 13th century.^[14][10] Among the earliest records are Florentine documents of the 13th century, which name a woman as the seròchia of a witness.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The chronicles of Giovanni and Matteo Villani use it of Helen, sister of Castor and Pollux, and of the sister of Queen Joanna.^[2][11] Dante has it in the Purgatorio of a man che se pigrizia fosse sua serocchia (as if sloth were his sister), and of Lachesis, “your sister and mine”.^[11][6] Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Aretino still use it.^[2][7]

From the 16th century it gave way to sorella, and today it is archaic and literary.^[4][5][14] DEI records the adjective sirocchievole “sisterly” in Firenzuola.^[10]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – First record.^[14]
• 1300s – Dante uses serocchia in the Purgatorio.^[11][4]
• 1500s – Firenzuola uses sirocchievole.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic, literary) sister; sorella.^[4][5][6][1]

Word family

• sirocchievole

Related words

• sorella
• suora
• Latin soror

References

1. ^ a b c 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. 19, 94
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3509
11. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli