Italian words

Before the French took their crown, Italian cooks were considered the best in Europe, and vermicelli, ‘little worms’, and *macaroni were being eaten in Britain in the 17th century, while Samuel Pepys valued his Parmesan [E16th] cheese so highly that he paused to bury it in his garden to keep it safe before fleeing the Great Fire of London in 1666. However, Italian food only became really popular in the early 20th century when we get the first records of fusilli ‘little spindles’, penne ‘quills’, and farfalle ‘moths’, although pizza ‘pie’ was known in the 19th century, as was lasagne, the name of which unappetizingly goes back to the Latin for ‘chamber pot’, perhaps also indicating a cooking pot. Ricotta [E17th] cheese means ‘cooked again’ because it is made from the reheated, left-over whey from other cheesemaking. The etymology of mascarpone [E20th] is unknown. It is, however, a vital ingredient of tiramisu [1980s]. Who invented this dessert is much debated, but it does not appear in Italian recipe books before the 1960s. It is said to have been created as a hangover cure, hence its name which means ‘pick me up’. The Italians are also famous for their coffee, giving us terms such as espresso [M20th] ‘pressed out’, macchiato [L20th] ‘stained’ with a dash of milk, caffè latte [M19th] ‘milk’, and cappuccino [M20th] named after the Capuchin monks because the colour is the same as their habits.

 Although Renaissance [M19th] ‘rebirth’ is a French word derived from Latin nasci ‘to be born’, it started in Italy and the country has influenced the arts for centuries. In painting we get fresco [L16th], originally in Italian al fresco ‘in the fresh or cool’ because it was painted on fresh, damp plaster (al fresco is first recorded for eating outdoors in English in 1717). Chiaroscuro [M17th] means ‘bright-dark’. Cartoon [L17th] comes from the ‘thick paper’ (also found in the cardboard carton [L18th]) that preliminary drawings were done on, with the comic drawing sense M19th. Graffiti [M19th] means ‘scratchings’ in Italian. In sculpture we have the torso [L18th] ‘stalk, stump’, the similar bust [M17th] from busto from Latin bustum ‘sepulchral monument’, and the Madonna [L16th] ‘my lady’ for the Virgin Mary. In architecture we get the *balcony, dome [E16th] from Italian duomo ‘cathedral, dome’, and less obviously *grotesque [M16th] from pittura grottesca ‘painting resembling that found in a grotto’. Grotto [E17th] is Italian, from Greek kruptē crypt [LME]. Such paintings were perhaps felt to be bizarre [M17th], which the French used in the sense we use, but which comes from Italian for ‘angry’.

 Italy is also the home of the opera [M17th] from ‘labour, work’, which also gives us alto [L16th] ‘high’, soprano [M18th] from sopra ‘above’, and baritone [E17th], which is ultimately from Greek barus ‘heavy’ and tonos ‘tone’. It was also the first country to print music, so is the language of musical terms such as the aria [E18th] ‘air’, serenade [ M17th] ‘serene’, cadence [LME] and cadenza [M18th] from ‘fall’, tempo [M17th] ‘time’, and instructions such as accelerando [L18th] ‘get faster’, piano [L17th] ‘softly’, forte [E18th] ‘loudly’, which together give us the pianoforte [M18th], now usually just a piano, which got its name from its innovative ability to be played with gradation in sound.

 The plays known as the commedia dell’arte which flourished from the 16th century have given us zany [L16th] from the Venetian form of the name Giovanni, given to the clowning servant traditional in the plays. Pantaloons [L16th] get their name from the baggy trousers traditionally worn by the foolish old-man character called Pantalone, while the hook-nosed, humpbacked character known as Punchinello [L17th] in the commedia and in puppet plays rapidly got shortened to Punch [L17th] in Punch and Judy shows.

 Another fictional character who has become a word in English is Paparazzo, a photographer in Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita, ‘The Sweet Life’, which also introduced that phrase to English (dolce far niente, ‘sweet do nothing, idleness’, is E19th). Other films have focused on the Mafia [M19th], which goes back to a Sicilian dialect word meaning ‘bragging’, and terms such as don [M20th in the mafia sense] from Latin dominus ‘master, lord’ and his consigliere, ‘council member, adviser’, found in English from 1615 for a legitimate councillor, but only in 1963 in the Mafia sense. But much earlier Italian ne’er-do-wells gave us bandit [L16th] from bandito ‘banned’ or outlaw as well as ruffian [L15th], which seems to have come, via French, from Italian dialect rofia ‘scab, scurf’.

 See also alert, alter, antiquity, attack, balcony, bank, bimbo, brigadier, camouflage, cannon, canteen, caper, caprice, carpet, casino, cauliflower, charlatan, chip, complete, confetti, contraband, cross, disaster, ditto, extravagant, faggot, fiasco, gazette, ghetto, gusto, harlequin, incognito, infant, inferno, influenza, launder, lido, malaria, manifest, marzipan, mascara, musket, novel, orc, page, palace, pander, paragon, parapet, paste, pergola, piston, porter, quaint, quarantine, race, rocket, rotation, saloon, sap, scarper, sequel, spade, square, tantamount, triad, vendetta, vogue, volcano, wasp.