tonno

Forms

tonno m (plural tonni)^[1] Old Italian also had tunno and tone.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin tunnus (“tuna”), the Late Latin form of classical thynnus (also spelled thunnus).^[3][4][5][1] Devoto and Devoto–Oli give the Latin form as a Vulgar Latin *tunnus.^[6][7] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek θύννος (thúnnos), which DELI and Nocentini take to be a Mediterranean substrate word and Zingarelli a Pre-Greek one; the GDLI calls it a relic of the Aegean substrate.^[3][4][8][2] Latin Wiktionary derives the Greek word from Phoenician.^[1] The ancients linked it with θύνω (thúnō, “to rush along”), from the way the fish rushes at its prey, but DELI regards this as a popular interpretation.^[3]

The same Latin word gave French thon, Occitan ton and Sardinian tunnu, while Spanish atún and Portuguese atum came through Arabic.^[4][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Tuscan version of Marco Polo's Milione, from the early 14th century: si ànno pesci assai, ma si ànno tonni molti, che per uno viniziano si averebbe .ij. grandi tonni (“they have plenty of fish, and many tunny, so that for one Venetian coin you could get two big tunny”).^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

Giovanni Villani, who died in 1348, writes that vennero in queste marine grande abbondanza di tonni (“a great plenty of tuna came into these seas”), and he also mentions the tonnare of Palermo, the fixed nets for catching tuna.^[3][12][13] The Sicilian fishery is older still: a Palermo charter of 1137 already has tunnina, preserved tuna.^[14] Tonnina is recorded in Italian from 1287, and tonnarotto, a worker of the tuna nets, was adapted from Sicilian tunnarotu in 1797.^[4]

The sense “tuna meat”, eaten fresh or preserved in oil, is dated from 1805.^[3] Vitello tonnato, veal in a tuna sauce, appears in 1923; the half-French vitello thonné that sometimes names the dish is a pseudo-French form of tonnato.^[3] In slang a tonno is a clumsy, foolish person.^[7][1] The Romance word is the source of English tunny and German Thunfisch.^[4]

Timeline

• 1137 – Tunnina “preserved tuna” appears in a Palermo charter.^[14]
• 1287 – Tonnina is first recorded in Italian.^[4]
• Early 14th century – The Tuscan Milione has tonni.^[11][3]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses tonno and tonnara.^[3][4]
• 1797 – Tonnarotto is first recorded.^[4]
• 1805 – The sense “tuna meat” is first recorded.^[3]
• 1891 – Tonnato is first recorded.^[4]
• 1923 – Vitello tonnato appears in Panzini's dictionary.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) tuna: a large sea fish of the genus Thunnus, especially the Atlantic bluefin (Thunnus thynnus), with a spindle-shaped body up to 3 metres long and a crescent-shaped tail.^{[5][7][8][15]}
2. Tuna meat, eaten fresh or preserved in oil: Stasera facciamo la pasta col tonno.^[5][7][16]
3. (slang) A clumsy, foolish person; a dupe.^[7][1]
4. (heraldry) The conventional figure of the fish shown on a fess.^[1][17]

Word family

• tonnara
• tonnato
• tonnarotto
• tonnetto
• tonnina
• tonnarella
• tonniera
• tunnide

Related words

• Latin thynnus
• French thon

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 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 i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 446
7. ^ a b c d e 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
14. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 998
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org