vigna

Forms

vigna f (plural vigne)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian vignia and Old Italian vingnia.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vīnea (“vine; vineyard”), through a spoken form Vulgar Latin *vinja.^[3][4][5][1] The Latin noun is the feminine of the adjective vīneus (“of wine”) used as a noun, from vīnum (“wine”), and it partly replaced the older vītis (“vine”), the source of vite.^[3][6][7][1] Medieval Latin documents of the Lucca area write vigna as early as 773.^[3]

The word is pan-Romance: French vigne, Occitan vinha, Catalan vinya, Spanish viña, Portuguese vinha, Sardinian binza and Romanian vie.^[6][8] In many of these it means the vine itself rather than the vineyard.^[8] The Latin word for wine goes back to an n-stem of the parent language for “vine”, which Beekes, cited by De Vaan, explains as “the winding one”, from a root meaning “to wind, to weave”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the first Italian record to 1221, and Nocentini to the beginning of the 13th century; the sense is a piece of land planted with vines.^[5][6] An early Florentine document records the purchase of a plot di sopra a la vìgnia di Guidotto, above Guidotto's vineyard.^[2] DELI's first literary example is Dante's (1300–1313).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used vigna for a single vine: Boccaccio's land of Bengodi is a place nella quale si legano le vigne con le salsicce (“where they tie up the vines with sausages”).^[10][11] Christian writers took the vineyard as a metaphor for the Church, drawing on the Gospel parable of the labourers of the eleventh hour; hence la vigna del Signore, and the familiar vigna di Cristo, a source of easy profit.^[3][12] In the 14th century the word also rendered Latin vinea, the Roman siege shelter.^[13][14]

From the late 15th century vigna also named a suburban estate with a villa, gardens and statues;^[15] French borrowed it in this sense in 1651 and German in 1838.^[15] Vignetta took its modern sense from French vignette, a vine-leaf ornament on a book page, recorded in 1598 and used for any illustration from 1770;^[3][6] vignettista, the cartoonist, dates from 1950.^[3][6] The slang svignarsela, to slip away, is traced to the same word.^[16][8]

Timeline

• 773 – Medieval Latin vigna appears in documents from the Lucca area.^[3]
• 1221 – Vigna is first recorded in Italian.^[5]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses vigna.^[3]
• 14th century – Vigneto “vineyard” and vigna for the Roman siege shelter are recorded.^[3][13]
• 1497–1521 – Vigna names a suburban villa.^[15]
• Before 1536 – Vignaruolo “vine grower” is used by G. Mauro.^[3]
• 1598 – Vignetta “vine-leaf ornament” is in Florio.^[3]
• 1651 – French vigne “Italian country villa” is recorded.^[15]
• 1831 – The plant genus Vigna is recorded in Italian.^[13][2]
• 1838 – German Vigna “villa” is recorded.^[15]
• 1950 – Vignettista is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vineyard; the vines grown in it: Abbiamo vendemmiato la vigna in tre giorni.^[5][17][10]
2. (archaic) A single vine plant.^[5][17][11]
3. (religion) La vigna del Signore: the Church as the community of believers.^[17][10][11]
4. (figurative) A source of easy profit; a comfortable situation: Per gli avvocati quella causa fu una vigna.^[5][17][10]
5. (historical) A suburban estate with a villa surrounded by gardens, avenues and statues.^[5][17][12]
6. (historical) The vinea, a Roman siege shelter.^[5][17][11]

Word family

• vignaiolo
• vigneto
• vignaio
• vignazzo
• svignare

Related words

• vignetta
• vite
• vino
• Latin vinea
• French vigne

Usage notes

A proverb says chi ha vigna ha tigna: whoever owns a vineyard has endless work.^[17] Vigna che non fa uva was said of a person or venture that yields nothing.^[18][19]

The plant genus Vigna, to which the black-eyed bean belongs, is named after the Pisan botanist Domenico Vigna (17th century); DEI records it in 1831 and GRADIT in 1961.^{[5][12][13][2]}

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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 c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4051
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c d e Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
16. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1054
17. ^ 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
18. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
19. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli