tordo

Forms

tordo m (plural tordi)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian turdo, and an old plural torde.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tŭrdus (“thrush”).^[4][5][6][1] The same word gave dialectal French tourd, Catalan tort, Spanish tordo and Portuguese tordo, Milanese dord and Friulian dorde; Romanian sturz has taken its ⟨s-⟩ from sturnus (“starling”).^[5][7] Latin turdus is also behind stordire, “to stun”.^[5][7] Latin had the derivative turdela, which gave tordela.^[4][5]

The Latin word belongs to a group of names of small birds that have parallels in other Indo-European languages but cannot easily be traced to one common form, as often happens in hunters' vocabulary.^[4][5][8] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *torzdo- and Proto-Indo-European *(s)tr(o)sdʰo- (“thrush”), with Old Irish truit (“thrush”), Lithuanian strazdas (“thrush”), Russian дрозд (drozd, “thrush”), Old High German drosala and Old English þrostle, the English throstle and thrush.^[9][5][1] Nocentini adds Ancient Greek στρουθός (strouthós, “sparrow”).^[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia quae dicuntur super natura feminarum of the last quarter of the 12th century: Lo merlo e lo tordo cantava sopra 'l pino (“the blackbird and the thrush were singing on the pine”).^[2][3] Nocentini dates the first record to the first half of the 13th century, DELI to 1286, in a register of the Servite convent of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence.^[5][4] The sense is the bird, a brown thrush pale below, prized as game.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The thrush was a game bird and a delicacy: Boccaccio lists i tordi grassi among fine foods, Sacchetti tells of four fine thrushes to be roasted, and Sannazaro of driving thrushes and blackbirds into the nets.^[11] The proverbial grasso come un tordo, plump and well fed, keeps that use alive.^[6][12][13]

The figurative sense “simpleton” is in Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger in 1618;^[14][7] DEI compares Calabrian turdu “dull, stupid” and Umbrian tordo “dimwit”, and REW Sicilian turduni “blockhead”.^[14][7] Like Latin turdus, the Italian word also names fish of the wrasse family, the Labridae;^[7][11][6] Pulci already has the pesce tordo.^[7][11][6]

Timeline

• Last quarter of the 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia super natura feminarum has tordo.^[2]
• 1286 – A Florentine convent register records the word.^[4]
• Before 1484 – Luigi Pulci uses tordela, the mistle thrush.^[4]
• 1618 – Buonarroti the Younger uses tordo for a simpleton.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) A thrush, any of several birds of the genus Turdus, especially the song thrush and the redwing, hunted for their meat.^[6][13][15]
2. (figurative) A simpleton, a gullible person; merlo is more usual in this sense.^[6][13][15]
3. (zoology) Any of several fish of the wrasse family (Labridae).^[6][13][15]

Word family

• tordela
• tordaio
• tordaia

Related words

• stordire
• turdidi
• Latin turdus
• English thrush

Usage notes

The two common Italian species are the tordo bottaccio, the song thrush, and the tordo sassello, the redwing.^[13][15] Grasso come un tordo is said of a plump person.^[6][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3828
15. ^ 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)