vagliare

Forms

vagliare (first-person singular present vàglio, first-person singular past historic vagliài, past participle vagliàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *valliāre, formed from Latin vallus (“winnowing basket, sieve”), an old technical word.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The Latin noun is a diminutive of vannus (“winnowing basket”), through a form *vannulus.^[3][4][7][8] DELI regards the noun vaglio “sieve” as a deverbal of the verb.^[2]

The Latin noun survives in the north as Ligurian valu and Piedmontese va, a form found also in Emilia, Lombardy and Friuli, where verbs are formed from it too.^[6]

The origin of the base noun is open.^[9][1] Walde and Hofmann linked it with ventus (“wind”), and Schrijver derived it from the word for “wind”, but de Vaan finds this unconvincing in form and meaning, while noting that it would explain the diminutive.^[9] Wiktionary traces the traditional view to Proto-Indo-European *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb first appears in the 13th-century Detto d'Amore in the figurative sense “to reject”.^[2] The literal sense “to pass through a sieve, to separate from foreign matter” is dated before 1400 in Franco Sacchetti, and Pandolfini (before 1446) has Vagliare è discernere il buon dal rio (“to sift is to tell the good from the bad”).^[2][10][11]

Semantic evolution

Balducci Pegolotti explains that pepper should be cleaned of earth, which comes out when it is sifted (cioè si vaglia).^[12] The Carnival songs of the 15th century used the verb for “to choose” and for “to reject”.^[11][10] The figurative “to examine thoroughly, weighing good and bad points” is dated 1679 in Paolo Segneri.^[2][11] In 1667 Lippi used the reflexive vagliarsi for “to wriggle”, a sense now obsolete.^[11][5]

In the 18th century Muratori defined vagliare as nothing but shaking the grain in the sieve.^[12] Today the verb is used for sifting gravel, sand and grain as well as for weighing proposals and arguments.^[4][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – The Detto d'Amore uses vagliare for “to reject”.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses vaglio figuratively.^[2]
• 1362–1364 – Boccaccio uses vaglio “sieve”.^[2]
• Before 1400 – Franco Sacchetti uses vagliare “to sift”, and vagliatura for the chaff left in the sieve.^[2]
• 1625 – Magazzini uses vagliatura for the act of sifting.^[2]
• 1667 – Lippi uses the reflexive vagliarsi.^[11]
• 1679 – Paolo Segneri uses the verb for “to examine thoroughly”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sift or sieve: to pass a loose material through a sieve to sort it by size or remove foreign matter: vagliare la sabbia.^[4][13][14]
2. (figurative) To examine carefully, weigh up, subject to close criticism: vagliare ogni ipotesi.^{[4][13][14][15]}
3. (reflexive, obsolete) vagliarsi: to shake oneself, wriggle.^[5][11]

Word family

• vaglio
• vagliatura
• vagliatore
• vagliatrice
• vagliata
• rivagliare

Related words

• vanno
• Latin vannus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3975
12. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)