Etymologically
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taglia

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈtaʎ.ʎa/[1]

Forms

taglia f (plural taglie)[1] Old Italian also wrote taia and tallia.[2]

Etymology

It is a derivation of tagliare (“to cut”), with a model in French taille, recorded from 1160.[3][4][5][1] The GDLI and Treccani derive the word directly from Old French taille (“cutting”), the noun of taillier (“to cut”), and DEI notes that the French noun moved from the cutting of images to the size of the human body.[2][6][7] Nocentini sees it this way: Old Italian had a native taglia (“olive cutting; log”), while the senses “body size” and “personal tax”, and, from the tax the ransom and the reward, were calqued on the French word.[8]

The verb goes back to tāliō (“to cut, prune”), a word of tree-growing, formed on tālea (“cutting, slip”).[8][9] Meyer-Lübke lists the same noun as taille, Old Occitan talha, Catalan talla, Spanish taja and Portuguese talha, meaning “tally stick”, “tax” and “figure”.[9] A form Medieval Latin tallia is recorded for a tax at Lucca in 1268 and at Verona in 1276.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI and GRADIT date the word before 1294, from Brunetto Latini, in the sense “stature, build of the body”.[10][3] Bono Giamboni also used it before 1292 for a slaughter in battle, a sense now lost.[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante used it for the cut of a garment, the hoods of the monks of Cluny: fatte de la taglia / che in Clugnì per li monaci fassi.[10][4][11] From the early 14th century, in Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani, it meant a levy or tax, and in the Florentine leagues the contribution of men or money each member owed; then a tribute imposed on the defeated, and ransom for prisoners (Filippo Villani, Sacchetti).[10][7][3] A taglia was also the tally stick on which notches recorded goods sold on credit, so that a taglia meant “on credit”.[7][12]

From the 17th century (Buonarroti the Younger, Salvini) the word took the sense “price on someone's head”, the reward for catching a bandit;[10] Tommaseo in 1879 called it the current sense.[10] The modern sense, the conventional size of ready-made clothes, is recorded from 1955, and the cacciatore di taglie is the bounty hunter of the American West.[10][5]

Timeline

  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses taglia for a slaughter.[2]
  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for stature.[10]
  • 1310 – Dino Compagni uses it for a levy.[7]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses it for the cut of a garment.[10]
  • Before 1400 – Filippo Villani and Sacchetti use it for ransom.[10]
  • 17th century – It is used for a reward for catching a criminal.[10]
  • 1955 – It is recorded for a clothing size.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The physical build of a person; stature: un uomo di taglia robusta.[3][4][12]
  2. Of animals, body size, measured at the withers in quadrupeds: un gatto di taglia media.[3][4][6]
  3. size of clothes, given by a number or letter: Questa giacca non c'è nella mia taglia.[3][4][11]
  4. A bounty, a reward offered for the capture of a criminal: Sulla testa del brigante pendeva una taglia.[3][4][5]
  5. (uncommon) A ransom demanded for the release of a kidnapped person.[3][4]
  6. (history) A tax or levy; a tribute imposed on the defeated; a contribution owed by the members of a league.[3][4][12]
  7. (archaic) The cut of a garment; a uniform.[4][12][5]

Word family

  • taglieggiare
  • taglieggiatore

Usage notes

A separate word taglia is the heavy tackle with two or more blocks used to lift weights on ships;[10][3] DELI dates it 1306, from Giordano da Pisa, and Galileo called it the Tuscan word for the Greek trochlea.[10][3] Its origin is uncertain: Nocentini and Devoto–Oli derive it from a non-Tuscan outcome of Latin tabula “board” in the dialects of the Tyrrhenian maritime republics, Genoese tagia and Amalfitan tallia.[8][4] German Talje (1700) probably came from it through Dutch.[13] Taglia forte and taglia unica are “large size” and “one size”.[4][12]

References

  1. ^ a b c 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 i j k Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  6. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3698
  8. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  11. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it