tralcio

Forms

tralcio m (plural tralci)^[1] The older form is tralce, used in the 14th-century Italian translation of Palladius.^[2][3][1] Dialect forms include Venetian trosa, Lombard tros and trosa, Parmesan travza and Corsican tràlici.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Italian tralce, with a new singular made on the plural tralci.^[2][3][6][7] The Old Italian word is inherited from Latin trādux (“vine branch”), through a Vulgar Latin *trālux.^[2][8][9][1] Nocentini explains the form by a change of the intervocalic /d/ to /l/, the loss of the vowel after the stress and a change of declension.^[10] DELI also allows another path: the /d/ was lost, as in traux in the Lombard laws, and ⟨au⟩ became ⟨al⟩ before a consonant by hypercorrection.^[2][11]

Latin trādux was a side branch of the vine trained across from one tree to the next in a vineyard.^[12] It comes from trādūcō (“to lead across, to transfer”), in the sense “to transplant”.^[2][10][13] That verb is formed from trāns- and dūcō (“to lead”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *deuk- (“to draw”).^[1][14]

The Latin word also survives in French troche and Walloon trok.^[5] In Lucca it became tramice by crossing with Latin trāmes (“path”).^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded before 1320 for the young branch of the vine.^[10][6][15] DELI's first record is the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, about 1350, where it names the year's shoot of the vine or of a climbing plant.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian tralce appears in the translation of Palladius on pruning the vine, and the remade tralcio in Crescenzi's warning that frost may kill the new shoots.^[11][16] The Collazioni dei Santi Padri renders the Gospel image of the vine and its branches with tralcio, and the Italian Bible still reads io sono la vite e voi i tralci for Latin ego sum vitis vos palmites (John 15:5).^[16][13]

By extension the word names a shoot of ivy or of any climbing plant.^[7][15] From 1749, in the translation of Chambers's Cyclopaedia, it is also the stump of the umbilical cord that stays attached to a newborn's belly.^[4][17] Viticulture has its own phrases, such as tralcio guardiano, tralcio pampinaio and tralcio speronato.^[6]

Its derivatives took figurative meanings: intralciare “to entangle, to hinder” (early 16th century), with intralcio “obstacle” (1779), and stralciare “to cut out” (15th century), with stralcio (16th century).^[10]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – Tralcio is first recorded.^[10][6]
• 14th century – Tralce is used in the Italian translation of Palladius.^[2][3]
• c. 1350 – The Italian translation of Crescenzi uses tralcio for a year's shoot of the vine.^[2]
• 14th century – Boccaccio uses tralciuto “full of shoots”.^[4]
• 15th century – Stralciare is recorded.^[10]
• Early 16th century – Intralciare is recorded.^[10]
• 1749 – The anatomical sense “stump of the umbilical cord” is recorded.^[4]
• 1779 – Intralcio is recorded.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young shoot of the vine, the branch grown in the year: In autunno si legano i tralci al filo.^{[6][8][7][15]}
2. By extension, a shoot of ivy or of another climbing plant.^[8][7][15]
3. (anatomy) The short piece of umbilical cord that stays attached to a newborn's belly.^[6][8][7]

Word family

• intralciare
• intralcio
• stralciare
• stralcio
• tralciuto
• tralcioso
• tralcetto

Related words

• tradurre
• Latin trādux

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3856
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
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 c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
17. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti