spigo

Forms

spigo m (plural spighi)^[1] An old and literary form is Old Italian spico.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spīcum (“point; ear of grain”), a neuter form beside spīca “ear of grain”.^[4][5][6][7] The GDLI derives it from both the neuter and the masculine spīcus.^[2][7]

Nocentini notes that Italian narrowed the word to lavender, while elsewhere it kept the sense “ear of grain”: French épi, Occitan espic, Catalan espic and Romanian spic.^[4][8] The Occitan and Catalan words also mean lavender, and the Occitan word passed into French as aspic.^[8] A derivative is espígol “lavender”.^[8] In northern Italian dialects the same Latin word gives Piacentine spig (“point, edge”) and Veronese and Venetian spigo (“pod, husk”).^[8]

Tommaseo describes the plant as fragrant, with blue flowers in spikes.^[3] DEI and the GDLI note that the word for lavender is Tuscan and Ligurian, and DEI adds Piedmontese.^[9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT, Nocentini and DEI date the word to the 13th century.^[5][4][9] Tommaseo quotes it in an old medical recipe of flowers of camomile, spigo, mastic and wormwood, and in the old poems of Bacciarone di Messer Baccone.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century Luigi Alamanni praised l'olente spigo (“the fragrant lavender”) for scenting a wife's linen.^[3][2] Mattioli, commenting on Dioscorides, says the Italians call their own nard spigo, and speaks of sacks of spigo nardo at Venice.^[3] Soderini held spigo and lavanda to be different plants, the male and the female.^[2]

Today it names the broad-leaved lavender, Lavandula latifolia, which yields a less prized essence than true lavender, and in common use lavender in general.^[10][5][1] It also means the dried flowers and seeds, sewn into little gauze bags to scent linen.^[11][12][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – First records of spigo.^[5][4][9]
• 16th century – Alamanni's l'olente spigo perfumes the linen.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) lavender, especially the broad-leaved lavender Lavandula latifolia, and other species of the genus Lavandula;^[5][10][1] spigo alpino and spigo chiomoso are kinds of it.^[5][10][1]
2. The dried flowers and seeds of lavender, kept in small sachets to scent linen: lenzuola che sanno di spigo.^[11][12][13]

Related words

• spiga
• spigonardo
• lavanda
• Latin spīca
• French épi

Usage notes

A synonym is spigonardo.^[12] It is not the same as lavanda in every source: Treccani separates spigo (Lavandula latifolia) from true lavender (Lavandula officinalis), but Zingarelli and Devoto–Oli simply equate the two.^[10][6][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3591
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 c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli