vascello

Forms

vascello m (plural vascelli or (archaic, dialectal) vascella)^[1] Older forms include Old Italian vasello, Old Italian vaselo, Old Italian vassello and Old Italian vassiello.^[2] The old plural could also be feminine, le vascella or le vascelle.^[3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin vascellum (“small vessel”), a diminutive of Latin vāsculum (“small vessel”), itself a diminutive of vās (“container, vessel”).^[4][5][1][6] The Late Latin word is found in Plinius Valerianus and in the ⟨Testamentum Porcelli⟩.^[4][7] It lost its diminutive sense, which survives in many local names for a stretcher or a barrel.^[4] The step from “vessel” to “boat” is common: Du Cange records seven documents in which vas means a ship.^[4] Medieval Latin vascellum (“ship”) occurs in a constitution of Frederick II, and vassellum in 1281.^[7][8] DELI and Prati see the old variant Old Italian vasello as a diminutive made directly from vaso.^[4][8]

The same Late Latin word gave French vaisseau, Occitan vaissel and Catalan vaixell, from which Spanish bajel and Portuguese baixel were borrowed.^[9][7][10]

Latin vās has no good etymology beyond Proto-Italic *wāss-.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form vaselo in a 13th-century Veronese didactic poem, the Insegnamenti a Guglielmo, where the sense “boat” is clear: ki in roto vaselo fa governaro (“whoever acts as helmsman in a broken boat”).^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries the word meant any boat or ship, in forms such as vassello (Fra Giordano) and vasello (Passavanti).^[2][7] Beside this, Jacopone da Todi used vascello for a small pot.^[7]

From the end of the 16th century vascello was the great sailing warship with three very tall masts and 80 or more guns.^[4] Crescenzio wrote of light vascelli in 1602, a 1797 document speaks of vascelli di linea, ships of the line, and the modern spelling is recorded from Stratico in 1813.^[4] The name survives in the naval ranks sottotenente, tenente and capitano di vascello.^[12][13][6] The vascello fantasma is the legendary ghost ship of the Flying Dutchman.^[14][15]

In central Italian dialects vascello is a vat or barrel with staves, and in Sicily and Calabria forms such as vasceddu name a beehive.^[16][7] In the 19th century the word was also used jokingly of a very large person.^[7][15]

Timeline

• 13th century – Vaselo “boat” appears in the Veronese Insegnamenti a Guglielmo.^[2][4]
• 13th century – Jacopone da Todi uses vascello for a small pot.^[7]
• 1281 – Medieval Latin vassellum “ship” is recorded.^[7][8]
• 14th century – Fra Giordano writes vassello and Passavanti vasello.^[7]
• 16th century – Francesco Guicciardini uses vascello for a warship.^[7][8]
• 1602 – Crescenzio writes of light vascelli.^[4]
• 1797 – Vascello di linea “ship of the line” is recorded.^[4]
• 1813 – Stratico's naval dictionary has vascello.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (nautical, historical) A large three-masted sailing warship with square sails and a bowsprit, in use from the late 16th to the mid-19th century, a ship of the line.^[5][12][13]
2. (literary) A ship or boat.^[5][16][15]
3. (fishing) In tuna fisheries, the boat also called maona.^[5][12][6]
4. (regional) A small barrel or vat with staves.^[5][12][16]

Word family

• vascellino
• vascelletto

Related words

• vaso
• vascolo
• Latin vās
• French vaisseau

Usage notes

The DEI enters the ship and the small pot or vat as two headwords, both from Late Latin vascellum.^[7] Bruciarsi i vascelli alle spalle means to burn one's boats.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3993
8. ^ a b c d Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1038
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli