trucco

Forms

trucco m (plural trucchi)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French truc (“knack, trick”), from Occitan truc (“blow”) with the slang sense “cunning, find”, from trucar (“to strike”), from Vulgar Latin *trūdicāre (“to strike, press, push”), from Latin trūdō (“to push, thrust”).^[2][3][4] DELI, after Nigra (1901), treats it with the verb truccare, from French truquer; both are recent and often slang words.^[4] Devoto–Oli and GRADIT make the makeup sense a derivative of that verb.^[5][3] DEI compares Emilian trüc (“business; swindle”) of Piacenza (1836), Piedmontese trüc (“barter; deceit”) and modern Occitan truc, and dates the French word in the sense “cunning” to the 12th century.^[6]

Old Italian had an older homonym, the name of a billiard-like game, which DELI says cannot be separated from the same base.^[4] Zaccaria and the GDLI derive it from the verb in the sense “to hit (a ball)”.^[4][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the sense of a fraud or swindle is in Panzini's dictionary of 1905.^[4][2][3] DEI notes a theatrical sense, a stage machine, in Bettoli in 1885.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word spread in the 20th century with the theatre and the cinema: the GDLI quotes Gozzano on the trucchi of the cameraman, and the senses “the act of making up” (1937) and “cosmetics” (1961) followed the verb truccare “to make up an actor”, recorded in 1926.^[4][9] Today trucco is both a clever trick or knack and makeup.^[3][5][10]

Timeline

• 1885 – Bettoli uses trucco for a stage machine.^[6]
• 1895 – Truccare is first recorded.^[2]
• 1905 – Panzini records trucco “fraud”.^[4][2]
• 1926 – Truccare “to make up (an actor)”.^[4]
• 1937 – Trucco “making up” in the Enciclopedia italiana.^[4]
• 1961 – Trucco “cosmetics”.^[4][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A trick, an artifice that creates an illusion: Il mago ci ha svelato il trucco della carta scomparsa.^[3][5][10]
2. (cinema, photography) A special effect.^[3][5][11]
3. (figurative) A clever expedient, a knack; also a swindle: Ha superato l'esame con un trucco.^[3][5][10]
4. make-up, the application of cosmetics, its result, and the cosmetics themselves: Si è rifatta il trucco prima di uscire.^[3][5][10]

Word family

• truccare
• truccatore
• truccatura
• struccare

Related words

• trucchetto

Usage notes

Il trucco c'è ma non si vede (“there's a trick, but you can't see it”) is a set phrase of conjurors, and i trucchi del mestiere are the tricks of the trade.^[3][5] The obsolete trucco, a table game like billiards played in Italy from the 16th to the 18th century, is recorded in 1626;^[12][8] English borrowed it as trucks (1671) and German as Trukko (1876).^[12][8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3919
7. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
8. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 422
9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 421
10. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it