stoppia

Forms

stoppia f (plural stoppie)^[1] Older forms are stobia and stopia, and Marin Sanudo has the Venetian plural stobie.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin stŭpŭla, a variant of stipula (“stalk of a cereal plant, straw”).^[3][4][5][1] The variant is recorded in inscriptions, and Varro has the short form stupla.^[6] Medieval Latin used the same short form at Bologna in 1250.^[3] This word is the popular outcome of the Latin word, beside the learned stipola.^[4][7]

The same word is Old French estuble, the source of French éteule, and Occitan estobla and Sardinian istula.^[4][8][9] The Latin variant was borrowed as Old High German stupfala, the source of German Stoppel.^[4][8] Meyer-Lübke held that the German word comes from Latin and is not the base of the Romance forms.^[4][8]

The Latin word is a diminutive of Proto-Italic *stips (“stalk”), from Proto-Indo-European *steyp- (“to be stiff, erect”).^[1] The OLD compares Russian стебло (steblo, “stem of a plant”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates stoppia to before 1292, and GDLI's first quotation is from Bono Giamboni, who compares a sinner to stoppia che dal sole è seccata (“stubble dried by the sun”).^[10][2] The sense was the dry stalks left in the field.^[2] DELI's first record is the Italian translation of Crescenzi, about 1350.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Already in the Crescenzi translation the word also named the stubble field, where turnips could be sown after the harvest.^[11][7] Burning the stubble was an old practice, as in Carducci's line Via per i solchi grigi le stoppie fumavano accese (“along the grey furrows the stubble smoked, alight”).^[2][12] Old Italian mettere stoppia in aia, “to put stubble on the threshing floor”, meant doing something useless.^[10][5]

Old Italian had stoppiaro “stubble field”, and stoppione names the field thistle.^[8] Ristoppiare, to sow a field with cereals again, dates from the 16th century, and ristoppio from 1908.^[4]

Timeline

• 1250 – Medieval Latin stupla is recorded at Bologna.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Stoppia is first recorded.^[10]
• c. 1350 – The Italian translation of Crescenzi uses the word.^[3]
• 16th century – Ristoppiare appears.^[4]
• 1908 – Ristoppio appears.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (agriculture, usually plural) stubble: the stalks of wheat or another cereal left in the field after harvest.^{[5][13][12][1]}
2. A stubble field.^[7][11]

Word family

• ristoppiare
• ristoppio
• stoppione

Related words

• stipola
• Latin stipula
• German Stoppel

Usage notes

The word is mostly used in the plural, stoppie.^[5][10][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 20, 224
3. ^ a b c d e 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 g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier