soccida

Forms

soccida f (plural soccide)^[1] The old form is soccita, first written soçita.^[2][3] The GDLI also lists sòcceda, sòceda, sòcida, sòcita and sògita.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin societās (“partnership, fellowship”), continued from the nominative and not, as usual, from the accusative.^[3][5][6][1] DELI and the dictionaries start from a popular Latin nominative *sŏcietas, stressed on the first syllable, in place of the classical stress.^[3][7][8][9] Nocentini puts the shift of stress down to the written transmission of the word, which took on the narrow sense of a livestock agreement between an owner and a breeder.^[5] Wiktionary notes that this backward shift is unusual and compares Sicilian cìvita.^[1] società is the learned doublet, from the accusative form.^[1][7]

The nominative also lives on in Ligurian sòsia and Emilian süsda, terms for the livestock lease, while Old French soistié goes back to the accusative.^[10][11] That noun is from Latin socius (“companion”) with the suffix -tās.^[12][1] De Vaan relates the noun to words for “man, warrior” in the Germanic languages, Old Norse seggr and Old English secg, and to Indo-Iranian words for “friend”.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is an account book from Città di Castello of 1261–1272, which mentions an entry ello quaderno dala soçita (“in the soccida ledger”).^[2][3] The same book records a sow handed over for three years, with half of the yield to be returned to the owner, which is the contract in which one party owns the animals and the other raises them and they share costs and income.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the word appears in documents from Pistoia (1300–1301), Arezzo (1349–1360) and Monte Amiata (1368), where livestock are said to be in soccita and the soccita is to be divided in August.^[2] The form with -d- is recorded from 1624.^[3]

The word stayed a legal and agricultural term.^[6][7] The names of the two parties came later: soccidario, the one who usually provides the work, in Tommaseo–Bellini (1873), and soccidante, who usually provides the capital, in 1943.^[3] Modern law distinguishes the soccida semplice, in which one party gives the animals and the other the work, the soccida parziaria, in which both give animals, and the soccida con conferimento di pascolo, in which the owner of the land gives the pasture.^[8][6][9]

Timeline

• 1262 – Soçita appears in an account book from Città di Castello.^[3][6][2]
• 1300–1301 – Soccita is recorded in a document from Pistoia.^[2]
• 1368 – A document from Monte Amiata records animals held in soccita.^[2]
• 1624 – The form soccida is first recorded.^[3]
• 1873 – Soccidario appears in Tommaseo–Bellini.^[3]
• 1943 – Soccidante is first recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) A form of agistment: an agricultural partnership in which one party provides the livestock and the other raises it, the produce and profits being shared: hanno preso trenta vitelli a soccida.^{[6][14][7][1]}

Word family

• soccidante
• soccidario

Related words

• società
• socio
• Latin societas

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 19, 221
5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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 c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3522
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier