ugola

Forms

ugola f (plural ugole)^[1] Older forms include Old Italian uvola, Old Italian uvula, Old Italian ugula, Old Italian ulola and Old Italian uvella.^[2] Devoto–Oli and Treccani give uvola as archaic and uvula as literary or scientific.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin ūvula (“small grape; uvula”), a word of the glosses, the diminutive of ūva (“grape”) with the suffix -ula.^{[5][6][7][2][1]} The use for the uvula is taken to be a calque of Ancient Greek σταφυλή (staphulḗ), which means both “bunch of grapes” and “uvula”: the small appendage hanging from the palate looks like a grape.^{[5][6][8][9][10]} Zingarelli labels the Italian word learned.^[11]

The change of /v/ to /ɡ/ is the same as in pargolo from parvulus and sego, and the noun gola “throat” helped it.^[5][12][13] The word survives above all in the northern dialects, where the article sometimes fused with it (Romagnol nuvla, Piedmontese vula), and in southern France and northern Calabria.^[9][14] French luette continues another diminutive, Vulgar Latin *uvitta, with the article fused.^[6][14][9]

Ūva goes back to Proto-Italic *oiwā.^[15][1] De Vaan notes similar tree names elsewhere, such as Ancient Greek ὄα (óa, “service tree”) and Proto-Germanic *īwaz (“yew”), and because of their vowel alternation suspects a loan from a non-Indo-European language.^[15] Wiktionary derives the word from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eyHw- (“a tree with berries”).^[15][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first records are the Florentine translation of the Antidotarium Nicolai (late 13th century) and the Neapolitan Regimen Sanitatis (13th–14th century), with the anatomical sense: the fleshy, grape-shaped body that hangs from the palate.^[2] DELI dates the word to the 14th century, in Pietro Spano's Tesoro dei poveri, whose remedy reads Cuoci l'isopo nello aceto, e fanne gargarismo: disenfia l'ugola (“boil hyssop in vinegar and gargle with it: it takes the swelling out of the uvula”).^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

The extended sense “throat” is already in Old Italian.^[2] DELI finds it in a dictionary only in 1961, though the phrases it quotes are old.^[5] The TLIO also records the word used in error for vulva.^[2] In 1598 Florio entered ugóla with a wrong stress, sending the reader to uvola.^[5]

Tommaseo records toccare or mordere l'ugola, said of food or drink that gives great pleasure, with Lasca's que' fegatelletti caldi m'hanno tocco l'ugola.^[10] The jocular bagnarsi l'ugola, “to have a drink”, and ugola d'oro, said of a fine singer (1939–40, Palazzi), use the word for the throat or voice.^{[5][3][11][4]} In anatomy the word also names other parts of similar shape, such as the ugola del verme of the cerebellum, and in phonetics the uvula forms the uvular consonants.^[4]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Florentine Antidotarium Nicolai has the first record.^[2]
• 14th century – Pietro Spano's Tesoro dei poveri uses ugola.^[5] The Italian translation of Guglielmo has uvola and in another manuscript ugula.^[5]
• 1339 – The adjective uvulare is recorded.^[9]
• 1598 – Florio records ugóla.^[5]
• 1939–1940 – Palazzi records ugola d'oro for a fine singer.^[5]
• 1961 – A dictionary records the jocular sense “throat”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The uvula, the fleshy appendage hanging from the middle of the soft palate.^{[7][3][8][11][16][1]}
2. (by extension, jocular) The throat: bagnarsi l'ugola, to have a drink.^{[7][3][11][16][1]}
3. (figurative) A singer's voice: ugola d'oro, a singer with a beautiful voice.^{[3][11][16][1]}
4. (anatomy) A part of similar shape in another organ: ugola del verme (of the cerebellum), ugola vescicale (of the bladder).^[4]

Word family

• uvulare
• uvulite

Related words

• uva
• Latin uvula
• French luette

Usage notes

The word is stressed on the first syllable, /ˈuɡola/.^[17][1] Gabrielli also records perder l'ugola, to lose one's voice, and toccare appena l'ugola, to eat very little.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ 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
4. ^ 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)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3944
10. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 505
14. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ Canepari, Luciano, DiPI: Dizionario di pronuncia italiana, online ed., dipionline.it
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli