spiga

Forms

spiga f (plural spighe)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spīca (“ear of grain”), which meant properly “point”: the ear was named after its sharp awns.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Latin also had a neuter spīcum and a rare masculine spīcus; according to Nocentini the neuter was at first the singular and the feminine its plural.^[3][6] The /g/ of the Italian word for Latin /k/ is a northern voicing between vowels, which the DEI already finds in Ristoro d'Arezzo; the old form spica survives in poetry.^{[7][8][9][10]}

The word is pan-Romance: Occitan espiga, Catalan espiga, Spanish espiga, Portuguese espiga, Sardinian ispiga, Dalmatian spaika and Romanian spică, a collective “ears”.^[3][11]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *speikā.^[12][1] De Vaan compares Germanic words for sharp objects, Old High German speihha (“spoke”), Old English spāca (“spoke”) and Dutch spijker (“nail”), and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *speig-, but finds no further etymology.^[12] Nocentini sets it beside pino and spina under a root for pointed things, a link Devoto thought vague.^[3][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word before 1320, and DELI's first record is the translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, about 1350, in the sense “ear of wheat”: some kinds of wheat have no awns on their ears, non ha reste nelle spighe.^[4][2][14] The verb spicare “to come into ear” is older, in Giacomo da Lentini before 1250.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante used the ear for the fruit by which a plant is known: pon mente a la spiga, / ch'ogn'erba si conosce per lo seme (“look at the ear, for every plant is known by its seed”); this figurative sense of “fruit, consequence” stays literary.^[4][9][10] Botany took the word for any spike, a simple or compound inflorescence of stalkless flowers along an axis.^[15][10]

The shape of the ear gave a spiga for a herringbone pattern in floors and fabrics, the embroidery stitch punto spiga, and the name of a tuft of hair growing against the lie of a horse's coat.^[9][16][10] spigolare “to glean” is in Dante, and the fish spigola, the sea bass, is named after its dorsal fins (1560).^[2][3] The proverb una spiga non fa manna says that one ear does not make a sheaf.^[10]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses the verb spicare.^[2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses spigolare.^[2]
• Before 1320 – Spiga is first recorded.^[4]
• About 1350 – The translation of Crescenzi uses spiga for the ear of wheat.^[2]
• 1560 – Spigola, the sea bass, is recorded.^[3]
• 1567–1573 – The diminutive spighetta appears in the Ricettario fiorentino.^[2]
• 1906 – Spighetta is used for the spikelet of grasses.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An ear of grain, especially of wheat: A luglio le spighe erano già gialle.^{[4][9][17][16]}
2. (botany) A spike: a simple or compound inflorescence of stalkless flowers set along a long axis.^{[4][9][16][10]}
3. (figurative, literary) Fruit, consequence.^[4][9][10]
4. (of horses) A tuft of hair growing against the normal lie of the coat.^[9][10]
5. a spiga: in a herringbone pattern, as in pavimento a spiga and tessuto a spiga.^{[9][16][10][18]}

Adjective

1. (invariable, after a noun) In punto spiga, an embroidery stitch that repeats the pattern of an ear.^[9][17][16]

Word family

• spigare
• spighetta
• spigolare
• spigolatore
• spigolatura
• spigatura
• spigato
• spigola
• spigolatrice
• spigone

Related words

• spica
• spina

Usage notes

Spiga is also a form of the verb spigare, “to come into ear”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3591
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 420
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
16. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli