stravaccarsi

Forms

stravaccarsi (first-person singular present mi stravàcco, first-person singular past historic mi stravaccài, past participle stravaccàtosi)^[1]

Etymology

It came into common Italian only recently from the dialects of the Po valley: it is borrowed from Lombard stravaccass, recorded in Milanese in 1814, beside Venetian stravacarse in Venetian (1829) and similar forms in Brescia, Padua, Reggio, Bologna and Romagna.^[2][3] In the north the verb first meant “to overturn, pour out”, of vessels and channels, and its use for people sprawling is a metaphor.^[3][2]

Flechia derived it from a Vulgar Latin *extravacuāre (“to empty out”), from vacuus (“empty”) with extrā (“outside”).^[2][3][4] Meyer-Lübke found that phonetically difficult and morphologically questionable, but Folena judged it plausible in meaning and form, and DELI and Nocentini accept it with some hesitation.^[5][2][3] Alessio proposed instead Late Latin trānsvāricāre (“to spread the legs”), used by Vegetius, of horses that sway on spread legs.^[2] GRADIT, Devoto–Oli, Treccani and Wiktionary take it as formed from Italian stra- + vacca + -are, but Nocentini holds that the word for the cow only came in as a later association.^{[6][7][8][1][3]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in Italian in 1878, in Giovanni Flechia's study of its etymology, for lying down or sitting in a sprawling way.^[2][3][6] Teofilo Folengo, before 1544, had already used it in his macaronic Latin, with stravaccatae pegorae “sprawling sheep”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The older sense “to pour out, overturn” is recorded in the Visconti chancery of 1438–1477, and the statutes of Novara of 1583 call an overflow channel a stravachatorium.^[2] Printers used stravacato from 1772 for a page set crooked.^[2] The past participle stravaccato, “sprawled”, appears in Lorenzo Stecchetti's verse in 1897.^[2] Dictionaries mark the verb as colloquial.^[6][9]

Timeline

• 1438–1477 – Stravacare “to pour” is recorded in the Visconti chancery.^[2]
• Before 1544 – Folengo writes stravaccatae in macaronic Latin.^[2]
• 1772 – Stravacato is recorded as a printers' term.^[2]
• 1775 – Paduan stravacare “to stretch out” is recorded.^[2]
• 1814 – Milanese stravaccass is recorded in Cherubini's dictionary.^[2]
• 1878 – Stravaccarsi appears in Italian, in Flechia.^[2][6]
• 1897 – Stecchetti uses stravaccato.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (colloquial, pronominal) To sprawl or lounge: to sit or lie down comfortably but untidily, often with su: Appena entrato si stravaccò in poltrona.^{[6][7][4][8][1]}

Word family

• stravaccato

Related words

• vuotare
• Latin vacuus

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 o p q 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli