spurio

Forms

spurio (feminine spuria, masculine plural spuri, feminine plural spurie)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin spurius (“illegitimate, bastard”).^[2][3][4][1] In Roman law the word was a legal status given to children whose father was unknown.^[3]

The Latin word is generally taken to be Etruscan.^[2][3][4][5] Devoto compared the pair of the name Latin Publius and the adjective publicus with Etruscan Spurie, a personal name, and the adjective spurial, and reconstructed an Etruscan base spur- for the land around a city, whose people stood outside the city's system of clans and its rights.^[3] Devoto and Zingarelli refer to sporco, from Latin spurcus (“foul”).^[6][7] Wiktionary also records proposed derivations from Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to scatter”) or *sperH-, the root of Latin spernō.^[1]

Spanish has the same learned word, Spanish espurio.^[3] As a popular word it survives only in Romanian spuriu, and DEI compares a Serbo-Croatian word for an illegitimate child.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the 13th-century Libro dei sette savi, in the legal sense “illegitimate”: Egli non era figliuolo dello re, anzi era spurio (“he was not the king's son, but a bastard”).^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian moral treatises sorted children born outside marriage into kinds: in Tommaseo's citation from the Maestruzzo, the spurio or nothus is the child of an adulteress, distinguished from the manzer, a prostitute's child, and the naturale.^[11] Guicciardini tells how Cesare Borgia had false witnesses prove him legitimate, because the cardinalate was not given to the spurio.^[10]

In the 18th century the word passed to texts and works: “not genuine, not authentic” is found in Muratori and Cocchi, before 1750 and 1758.^[2] In anatomy coste spurie (the false or floating ribs) is recorded before 1673.^[2] Later sciences added more uses: the ala spuria of birds, a “spurious” organ in botany, spurious data in statistics, and an anomalous signal in electronics.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – Spurio “illegitimate” appears in the Libro dei sette savi.^[2]
• Before 1673 – O. Rucellai Ricasoli uses it of the lower ribs.^[2]
• Before 1750 – Muratori uses it for “not genuine, not authentic”.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. illegitimate, born outside marriage or of an adulterous relationship: un figlio spurio.^{[4][13][7][12]}
2. Not authentic, wrongly or falsely attributed, of a work or document: Molte lettere a lui attribuite sono spurie.^{[4][13][14][7]}
3. (of an edition) Not acknowledged by its author: edizione spuria.^[7][15]
4. (anatomy, dated) coste spurie or costole spurie: the false ribs, the lower ribs that do not join the sternum.^{[13][14][7][12]}
5. (zoology) ala spuria: the alula, the tuft of feathers on the first digit of a bird's wing.^[13][12]
6. (botany) Of an organ that resembles an organ of a different nature.^[16]
7. (electronics) Anomalous, unexpected: un segnale spurio.^[13]

Related words

• sporco
• Latin spurius
• Latin spurcus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3607
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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, 1073
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana