trito

Forms

trito (feminine trita, masculine plural triti, feminine plural trite)^[1] Old Italian forms include tritto, trido and triaa, mostly northern.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trītus (“rubbed; worn; trodden”), the past participle of terō (“to rub; to thresh; to wear out”).^{[4][5][6][7][1][8]} Nocentini traces the sense “hackneyed” to the Latin use of the participle for a well-trodden path, and DEI notes that Cicero and Tibullus already spoke of a trodden road in these words.^[5][9] From the adjective came the verb tritare, whose Latin form trītō is recorded in Oribasius (5th–6th century AD).^[4][10] Tommaseo still treats the adjective as the past participle of that verb.^[11]

The same Latin word gave Occitan trit (“worn”) and Catalan trits (“coarse bran”).^[5][12] DEI calls it a word of Italy and western Romance.^[9]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub”), with cognates in Ancient Greek τείρω (teírō, “to wear out, distress”) and τρίβω (tríbō, “to rub”).^[13] De Vaan derives the ⟨ī⟩ of the participle from a present *treh₁-i-, or from a participle *tr̥h₁-i-to-.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, of the last quarter of the 12th century, in a sense it glosses as “kneaded into a paste”, a branch of the main sense “reduced to small pieces”.^[2] Tuscan texts of 1268 and 1275 quote the saying that without skill trita farina, finely ground flour, gives no bread.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante used it of threshed straw: quando l'una paglia è trita, / a batter l'altra dolce amor m'invita (“when one sheaf is threshed, sweet love invites me to beat the other”).^[4][6][11] In Old Italian it was also said of ground broken up by digging, of worn cloth, and of a dance that was not smooth and flowing.^[2] Boccaccio's passo trito was a short, quick step, and Ariosto's via più trita the most beaten road.^[9][14]

The figurative sense “commonplace” is in V. Borghini, and “hackneyed, worn by repetition” in G. A. Anguillara in 1561.^[9][4] Vasari used it in painting for a minute, fussy manner, and Caro of tender meat.^[9][15] The reinforced ritrito dates from 1872, and the noun, a chopped mixture of vegetables and lard used in cooking, from 1965.^[5][4]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur use the adjective.^[2]
• 1268 – Andrea da Grosseto has la trita farina.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses trita of threshed straw.^[4][6]
• 1561 – G. A. Anguillara uses it for “hackneyed”.^[4]
• 1688 – Minucci uses it of a worn garment.^[9]
• 1872 – Ritrito is recorded.^[5]
• 1965 – The noun “chopped mixture” enters Zingarelli's appendix.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. chopped, minced, cut into very small pieces, tritato: prezzemolo trito.^{[6][16][7][15][1]}
2. (archaic) Of grain or straw, threshed.^{[6][16][7][14]}
3. (archaic) Of a road or ground, trodden, beaten; by extension, much used.^{[6][16][15][1]}
4. (uncommon) Of clothes, threadbare, worn out;^{[6][16][7][14][1]} (literary) of a person, poor and shabbily dressed.^{[6][16][7][14][1]}
5. (figurative) trite, hackneyed, heard too often: una battuta trita;^{[6][16][7][17][1]} trito e ritrito, said over and over.^{[6][16][7][17][1]}
6. (literary) Short, quick and frequent, of steps or sounds.^{[6][16][14][1]}

Noun

1. (cooking) A chopped mixture of aromatic vegetables, often with lard or ham, used as a base for cooking; battuto: un trito di sedano e carota.^{[6][16][7][15][1]}
2. (mining) A size of solid fuel, lignite in pieces of 4 to 10 cm.^[14]

Word family

• tritello
• tritacarne
• tritare
• tritatutto
• tritume
• ritrito
• tritamente
• tritino

Related words

• triturare
• Latin terō

Usage notes

The GDLI records a learned trito² in old music, the name of the fifth and sixth modes of Byzantine and Gregorian chant (trito autentico and trito plagale), from Ancient Greek τρίτος (trítos, “third”).^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 379
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3907
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 380