spogliare

Forms

spogliare (first-person singular present spòglio, first-person singular past historic spogliài, past participle spogliàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian spoliare, Old Italian spolliare and Old Italian spoiare, and the short past participle spoglio.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spoliāre (“to strip of clothes or arms; to plunder”), formed from spolium (“hide; spoils”).^[3][4][5][6] Most other Romance languages continue the prefixed Latin dēspoliāre, mostly in the figurative sense: French dépouiller, Occitan despolhar, Catalan despullar, Spanish despojar, Portuguese despojar and Romanian despuia.^[4][7] The simple verb survives on the edges of the Italo-Romance area: Sardinian ispozare, Friulian spoià and Romansh spoglier.^[4][7]

The Latin noun first meant the hide stripped from an animal, then the arms taken from a defeated enemy.^[8][1] De Vaan derives it from Proto-Indo-European *spol(H)-i(o)- (“what is split, stripped off”), from a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel(H)- (“to split”), and compares Ancient Greek σπολάς (spolás, “leather garment”) and German spalten (“to split”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the 13th-century Canzone del fi' Aldobrandino, where a husband complains that his wife feeds him, mi veste e scalza e spoglie (“dresses me, takes off my shoes, and undresses me”).^[3][9] The sense is to take someone's clothes off.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Bono Giamboni, before 1292, already used the verb for depriving someone of a rank, and Jacopone, before 1306, for giving away all one has (spogliarsi).^[3] The reflexive “to undress oneself” is in the Novellino at the end of the 13th century, and “to rob, plunder” in Franco Sacchetti before 1400.^[3] In 1549 Mattioli wrote of snakes shedding their skin in spring, and before 1676 Carlo Dati used it for going through a text to extract its words, a use VEI also finds in Redi.^[3][10]

The noun spoglio “stripping” is recorded before 1348; by 1873 spoglio dei voti was the counting of votes, which spogliare le schede still names.^[3][11] Spogliatoio, a changing room, is recorded in 1550, and spogliarello, a rendering of English striptease, in 1955 according to Nocentini and in 1957 according to DELI.^[3][4]

Timeline

• 13th century – The Canzone del fi' Aldobrandino uses spogliare for undressing.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for depriving of a dignity.^[3]
• End of the 13th century – The Novellino has the reflexive spogliarsi.^[3]
• Before 1348 – The noun spoglio is recorded in Giovanni Villani.^[3]
• Before 1400 – Franco Sacchetti uses the verb for robbing.^[3]
• 1550 – Spogliatoio is recorded.^[3]
• 1955 – Spogliarello “striptease” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To undress: to take the clothes off someone: Spogliò il malato per la visita.^[5][12][11]
2. (reflexive, spogliarsi) To undress oneself; of a tree or animal, to lose its leaves or skin.^[11][13][14]
3. To strip a defeated enemy of his arms; to strip something of its covering, leaves or ornaments: L'autunno spoglia i rami.^[5][12][13]
4. (figurative) To rob, plunder, deprive someone of what they own or are entitled to: spogliare qualcuno di ogni avere.^[5][11][13]
5. To sack a city or strip a building of its valuables.^[5][13]
6. To go through texts, documents or mail to extract data; to count ballots: spogliare le schede.^[11][13][14]
7. (reflexive, figurative) To give up something, or free oneself of a quality or prejudice: spogliarsi di ogni orgoglio.^[11][13]

Word family

• spogliatoio
• spogliarello
• spogliarellista
• spoglio
• spoliazione
• spogliatore
• spogliatura
• spogliamento

Related words

• spoglia
• Latin spolium

Usage notes

Spogliare qualcuno con gli occhi is to look at someone with open sexual desire, and spogliare l'abito (monastic or priestly) is to leave religious life.^[12][13][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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 g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 19, 978
10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
11. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli