stracciare

Forms

stracciare (first-person singular present stràccio, first-person singular past historic stracciài, past participle stracciàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *extractiāre, formed with ex- on a *tractiāre from tractus, the past participle of trahō (“to draw, drag”).^[2][3][4][1] Nocentini, Devoto–Oli, Prati and Meyer-Lübke start instead from *distractiāre, an intensive of distrahō (“to tear apart”), which also gave straziare.^[5][6][7][8] Devoto saw a northern form of the type strasar behind the word, later made Tuscan.^[9]

The same formation is Occitan estrasar and Spanish estrazar, with Portuguese estracinhar from the noun.^[5][8][10] Venetian keeps that form, and other dialects have Sicilian strazzari and Piedmontese strassé.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Dino Compagni's chronicle (1310–1312), for tearing documents to pieces: “the records were torn up” (Gli atti furono stracciati).^[2][11] Zingarelli dates the word to 1287.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used it of tearing flesh: in Dante a demon hooks a sinner's arm and, tearing, carries off a piece of it (sì che, stracciando, ne portò un lacerto).^[3][12] Boccaccio has stracciato (1348–1353) both for torn things and for a person in rags.^[2] In silk making the verb meant to comb the silk from pierced cocoons with an iron comb (1873, Tommaseo), and in the rag trade it means to tease woollen rags into fibre.^[2][3] Leopardi uses it of grief that tears the heart, and Capuana of a ruling that overturns an earlier one.^[12] The sporting sense, to beat an opponent by a wide margin, is recorded in 1960.^[2]

Many words were formed on the noun straccio “rag”, first as Medieval Latin strazus at Bologna in 1288 and in Italian at the end of the 13th century in the Novellino: stracciaiolo (Medieval Latin strazarolus, Venice, 1283), straccione (1611), straccivendolo (1960) on the model of pescivendolo, and stracciatella, a Roman egg-drop soup (1931).^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1283 – Medieval Latin strazarolus is recorded at Venice.^[2]
• 1287 – Zingarelli's date for stracciare.^[4]
• 1288 – Medieval Latin strazus “rag” is recorded at Bologna.^[2]
• 1310–1312 – Dino Compagni uses stracciare.^[2][3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses stracciato.^[2]
• 1611 – Florio records straccione.^[2]
• 1873 – Tommaseo records the sense “to comb silk from cocoons”.^[2]
• 1931 – Stracciatella is recorded as a Roman soup.^[2]
• 1960 – The sense “to beat soundly” is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tear up, to rip to pieces, especially paper or cloth: stracciarsi le vesti, literally to tear one's clothes, figuratively to give way to despair or to show outrage, often feigned.^[3][6][4]
2. (textiles) To tease woollen rags into fibre; formerly, to comb the silk from pierced cocoons with an iron comb.^[3][6][4]
3. (archaic) To tear flesh, to maul.^[3][13]
4. (literary, figurative) To torment, to rack.^[3][6]
5. (uncommon) To annul, to overturn a ruling.^[3][6]
6. (colloquial) To trounce an opponent in a contest.^[3][6][4]
7. (pronominal) stracciarsi: to get torn.^[4][13]

Word family

• straccio
• stracciato
• stracciatura
• stracciamento
• stracciabile
• stracciaiolo
• straccione
• stracceria
• straccivendolo
• stracciatella
• straccetto

Related words

• straziare
• trarre
• distrarre
• estrarre
• cartastraccia

Usage notes

Old Italian had a separate stracciarsi “to leave the track”, said of a hunted animal, formed from traccia with a prefix.^[14][11] The future is straccerò.^[4][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 954
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 428
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3646
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 20, 253