sugoso

Forms

sugoso (feminine sugosa, masculine plural sugosi, feminine plural sugose)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Italian sugo + -oso, “full of juice”.^[2][3][4][1] Sabatini–Coletti, Zingarelli, Gabrielli and the GDLI derive it instead from Latin sūcōsus (“juicy”), and Wiktionary gives both explanations.^{[5][6][7][8][1]} Devoto combines them: the Latin adjective reshaped after the Italian noun.^[9] The Latin word is formed from sūcus (“juice, sap”) with the suffix -ōsus.^[10][1] Meyer-Lübke lists its outcomes in Italian and in Spanish jugoso.^[11]

The noun sugo is the popular outcome of sūcus, with the northern voicing of the consonant between vowels, while succo and the doublet succoso keep the Latin consonant.^[12][13][1] De Vaan traces the Latin noun to Proto-Italic *souko- and a root for “to suck” that varies between Proto-Indo-European *suḱ- and *sug-, a variation that some scholars take as the sign of a loan from a substrate language.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini and GRADIT date the first record before 1320, and Zingarelli even before 1276.^[12][2][6] DELI's first dated sense is “rich in juice”, from the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, about 1350.^[13] There it describes plants full of sap: the grafts should be “without fruit, sappy” (senza frutto, sugose).^[8][15]

Semantic evolution

From plants full of sap the word passed to juicy fruit and roots: Landino's translation of Pliny says of a root that it è sugosa.^[8] The GDLI also records it for food rich in nourishment and, later, for dishes with plenty of sauce, and for a person of full and healthy flesh, a use already found in Guinizelli.^[8]

The figurative sense “dense, full of content” is old as well: Salvini praised Dante's sonnets as sugosi e soavi, and the GDLI quotes Carlo Dati and Muratori for brief, meaty speech.^[15][8] Treccani calls the figurative use rarer than the literal one.^[4] Sabatini–Coletti and Zingarelli give succoso as a synonym, and Treccani finds sugoso the more proper word for juice.^[5][6][4]

Timeline

• Before 1276 – Zingarelli's date for the first record.^[6]
• Before 1320 – First record according to Nocentini and GRADIT.^[12][2]
• c. 1350 – The Italian translation of Crescenzi uses it of plants rich in sap and juice.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. juicy, full of juice (of fruit and vegetables): Queste pere sono molto sugose.^{[2][3][5][6][1]}
2. Dressed with plenty of sugo or sauce: un ragù sugoso.^[2][3][4][1]
3. (figurative) Rich in content, pithy, interesting: una lezione breve ma sugosa.^{[2][5][6][7][1]}

Word family

• sugosità
• sugosamente

Related words

• sugo
• succoso
• succo
• Latin sucosus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ 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
4. ^ 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)
5. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
8. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 20, 514
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET