trota

Forms

trota f (plural trote)^[1] Old Italian forms include troita, truita and truta.^[2] In Lucca the word is truota, in Rome and Sicily trotta, and Venetian has truta.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin tructa, recorded from the 4th century on, in Ambrose, Gregory of Tours, Pliny Valerianus and Isidore of Seville.^[5][6][7] The single /t/ for Latin ⟨ct⟩ shows that the word reached the standard language through the northern dialects.^[5][6][2][8] GRADIT assumes a variant Late Latin *trōta, and the length of the stressed vowel of the Latin word is uncertain.^[7][6][9] The same word is French truite, Occitan trocha, Spanish trucha and Portuguese truta, and it passed into Old English truht, the source of English trout.^[6][10] Meyer-Lübke and Salvioni derived the Italian word from the French one, brought in as a kitchen term;^[10][3] Prati doubted this.^[10][3]

The source of the Latin word is unknown.^[6][11] One proposal is Ancient Greek τρώκτης (trṓktēs, “nibbler”), from τρώγω (trṓgō, “to gnaw”), but that word named a quite different fish, a kind of tuna.^[5][1] Nocentini thinks a Celtic source no likelier, for want of sure comparisons.^[6] Battisti and Alessio suggest a mix of a pre-Latin word of Gaul with Late Latin trocta, a form taken from the Greek and found in Ambrose.^[6][4][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Lombard Istoria of the Pseudo-Uguccione, of the first half of the 13th century, for the freshwater fish with an elongated body and prized flesh;^[2][5] DELI's first is the Quaderno Del Bene of 1319.^[2][5] Earlier still, Truita is a woman's name at Vicenza in 1078, and the word is recorded at Venice in 1173.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Crescenzi's treatise counts trout among the fish of Lombardy that can live in spring or river water, and Franco Sacchetti's verse has the line Oh bel pescar che fai; ma non a trote (“fine fishing you do, but not for trout”).^[13]

Derivatives describe things that look or are cooked like a trout: trotato (17th century, Buonarroti), trotare, to cook in the manner of trout, and trotino, a grey horse flecked with red like a trout.^[4][3] Trota salmonata, with pink flesh like a salmon, is recorded by Tommaseo–Bellini, and troticoltura, trout farming, in 1961.^[13][6] Modern Italian names many kinds: trota fario or di torrente, trota di lago, trota marmorata and trota iridea, the American rainbow trout.^[14][9]

Timeline

• 1078 – Truita is a woman's name at Vicenza.^[3]
• 1173 – The word is recorded at Venice.^[4]
• First half of the 13th century – The Pseudo-Uguccione's Istoria has the first Italian record.^[2]
• 1319 – The Quaderno Del Bene records trota.^[5]
• 1585 – Garzoni writes trutta.^[3]
• 1961 – Troticoltore and troticoltura are first recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. trout: a freshwater fish of the salmon family with a slender body, small scales and spots on its sides, prized for its flesh: Abbiamo pescato due trote nel torrente.^[7][15][16]
2. The common name of the varieties of Salmo trutta.^[7][14]

Word family

• trotella
• trotino
• trotato
• trotiera
• troticoltore
• troticoltura

Related words

• Latin tructa
• French truite
• English trout

Usage notes

In the Ladin dialects and in northern Veneto and Trentino, trota is also a nightmare, a word from Tyrolean German that goes back to the witch-like Drude of Germanic folklore.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1019
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3917
5. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 455
9. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 412
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET