aiuola

Italian edit

Inherited from Latin āreola, diminutive of ārea (“open space”). By surface analysis, aia (“threshing floor”) +‎ -ola (diminutive suffix). Compare borrowed doublet areola. Compare Sicilian ariu.

aiuola f (plural aiuole)

flowerbed, bed
- 13^th century, “Degli Spinaci”, in Trattato dell'agricoltura [Treatise On Agriculture]‎^[1], translation of Opus ruralium commodorum libri Ⅻ by Pietro De' Crescenzi, published 1605, page 361:
  Seminansi sole anche nell'aiuole, e mischiati ancora con l'altre erbe
  They are also planted alone in flowerbeds, and mixed with other herbs
(archaic, poetic, metonymically) land, earth
- c. 1316–1321, Dante Alighieri, “Canto XXII”, in Paradiso [Heaven]‎^[2], lines 151–153; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate]‎^[3], 2^nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:
  L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci,
  volgendom'io con li etterni Gemelli,
  tutta m'apparve da' colli alle foci
  The land that makes us so fierce, while I was revolving along with the eternal Twins, all appeared to me, from the hills to the harbours/harbors