sorba

Forms

sorba f (plural sorbe)^[1] Old Italian and Tuscan dialects also have sorva, at Grosseto and on Monte Amiata.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sŏrba (“service-berries”), the plural of the neuter noun for the fruit, taken as a feminine singular.^[4][1] Wiktionary gives the Vulgar Latin forms as *sorbea and *sorba.^[1] The Latin word for the fruit is derived from sorbus (“service tree”), which gave Italian sorbo.^[5][6]

The same word is Occitan sorba, which passed into French as sorbe, and Spanish serba, Portuguese sorva and Sicilian sorva.^[4][7]

De Vaan finds no etymology for the Latin name of the tree.^[5] Pokorny linked it with Russian соробалина (sorobalína, “rose hip, blackberry”) and Lithuanian serbentà (“currant”) and set up a PIE root meaning “red”.^[5][1] De Vaan allows the connection but thinks these words show at most a shared non-Indo-European word for “berry”.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Zingarelli date the word to before 1320, and DELI's first record is the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi, about 1350, for the fruit of the service tree.^[8][9][6] One of GDLI's early quotations is a sonnet of Cenne da la Chitarra: Da mangiar abbiate sorbe e péra (“to eat, may you have service-berries and pears”).^[2]

Semantic evolution

The fruit is picked unripe and left to ripen in straw, which gave the proverb col tempo e con la paglia si maturano le sorbe, “with time and straw service-berries ripen”, sometimes continued e la canaglia (“and so do rogues”): one has to wait for things to come to fruition.^[10][11] Hard unripe sorbe stood for sourness in Old Italian verse, as in Burchiello's l'asprezza delle sorbe mai mature.^[12]

From the 16th century the cant of rogues used sorbe for blows with a stick, and the sense “blow, thump” passed into common colloquial use.^[3][8] Pulci already writes of a blow on the head che come 'l fussi una noce lo schiaccia (“that crushes it as if it were a nut”).^[10] In the plural sorbe! became an exclamation of surprise, especially in Bologna, where the diminutive sorbole! (dated 1965) is said to rest on an obscene metaphor for the testicles, as marroni does.^[9][4]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – Sorba is first recorded.^[8][9]
• c. 1350 – The Italian translation of Crescenzi uses sorbe for the fruit.^[6][12]
• 16th century – Rogues' cant uses sorbe for blows with a stick.^[3]
• 1965 – The Emilian-Romagnol exclamation sorbole! is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) The service-berry or sorb: the small, round or pear-shaped fruit of the service tree (sorbo), brownish red when ripe, picked unripe and left to ripen in straw.^{[8][11][10][1]}
2. (colloquial, figurative) A blow or thump, usually in the plural: Se lo prendo, gli do certe sorbe!^[8][9][10]
3. (regional, interjection, in the plural) sorbe!: an exclamation of surprise or wonder.^[8][9][11]

Word family

• sorbola

Related words

• sorbo
• Latin sorbus
• French sorbe

Usage notes

In Romanesco, according to DEI, sorbe are pernacchie, rude noises made with the lips.^[3] Sorbola is a synonym for the fruit.^[9][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 476
3. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3555
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ 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)
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse