stame

Forms

stame m (plural stami)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian stamine, Old Italian stamma and Old Italian stamme, and the word was once also feminine.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin stāmen (“warp of the loom; thread drawn from the distaff”), a formation on stāre (“to stand”), so “what stands upright”.^[3][4][5][1] Devoto took it from the language of weavers and thought its meaning was influenced by nēmen (“thread”).^[6] There is a parallel formation in Ancient Greek στήμων (stḗmōn), and DEI even regards the Latin word as an adaptation of it.^[7][8][9]

The same Latin word is French étaim, Occitan estam, Catalan estam, Spanish estambre and Portuguese estame, everywhere a wool yarn; Sardinian istamine and Romansh stom also continue it, and it was borrowed as Welsh ystof (“warp”).^[4][10] The Latin noun goes back through Proto-Italic *stāmen to Proto-Indo-European *stéh₂mn̥, from the root *steh₂- (“to stand”).^[1][7]

The botanical sense is a learned use: Pliny had already applied the Latin word to the thread-like parts of a flower.^[2][9][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in the Florentine texts of 1299–1300, uses stame for the finest and strongest part of wool, used for good cloth.^[3][4][5] Jacopone da Todi names it beside thread and wool (filo, lana o stame), and in the Decameron a lover offers “a fine skein of stame” (una bella fetta di stame).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Florence had its wool-workers called stamaiuoli (Medieval Latin stamaiolus, 1259), and a Via degli Stamaioli kept the name until 1913.^[9] The cloth stametto was exported from Lombardy, and the French estamet of the 15th century is the Italian word.^[9] An older derivative is stamigna, a thin but strong open cloth, which comes through Medieval Latin staminea (Nonantola, 895) from Latin stamineus “full of threads”.^[3][4]

Latin already spoke of the “thread of life” that the Fates spun from the spindle and cut;^[3][12] Petrarch took up stame in this sense before 1374, and Parini and Leopardi used it in their verse.^[3][12] The botanical sense, the male organ of the flower, is first recorded in Mandirola (1660–1694); DEI places it in the 18th century, in Vallisneri and Taglini (1729).^[3][9] Nocentini links the botanical sense to the thread of life as well as to the thread-like shape, and explains staminale (1927), used of stem cells, the same way.^[4]

Timeline

• 895 – Medieval Latin staminea is recorded at Nonantola.^[3]
• 1178–1182 – Stamegna appears in the declaration of Paxia.^[3]
• 1259 – Medieval Latin stamaiolus, a worker in stame, is recorded at Florence.^[9]
• 1299–1300 – Stame “the finest part of wool” appears in Florentine texts.^[3][5]
• Before 1374 – Petrarch uses stame for the thread of life.^[3]
• 1660–1694 – Mandirola uses it for the male organ of the flower.^[3]
• 1927 – Staminale is first recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (textiles) The longest, finest and strongest fibre of wool, separated by combing and used for high-quality cloth.^{[5][13][11][14]}
2. (textiles) The warp; a thread of the warp.^[5][15][11]
3. A thread, especially as it is being spun.^[5][15][14]
4. (literary) lo stame della vita: the thread of life that the Fates spin and cut; one's destiny or span of life.^{[5][13][14][15]}
5. (botany) stamen, the male organ of a flower, made up of a filament and an anther.^{[5][13][11][14]}

Word family

• stamigna
• staminale
• stamaiolo
• stametto
• stamineo

Related words

• stare
• Latin stāmen

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 20, 55
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3616
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b 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 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 c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana