noverca

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin noverca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /noˈvɛr.ka/
• Rhymes: -ɛrka
• Hyphenation: no‧vèr‧ca

Noun

noverca f (plural noverche) (literary)

1. stepmother, stepdame

   Synonym: matrigna

   • c. 1316–1321, Dante Alighieri, “Canto XVI”, in Paradiso [Heaven]‎^[1], lines 58–63; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate]‎^[2], 2^nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:

     Se la gente ch’al mondo più traligna
     non fosse stata a Cesare noverca,
     ma come madre a suo figlio benigna,
     tal fatto è fiorentino e cambia e merca,
     che si sarebbe vòlto a Simifonti,
     là dove andava l’avolo a la cerca

     Had not the folk, which most of all the world degenerates, been a stepdame unto Caesar, but as a mother to her son benignant, some who turn Florentines, and trade and discount, would have gone back again to Simifonte there where their grandsires went about as beggars

Further reading

• noverca in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Latin

Etymology

Related to novus (“new”) and cognate with Old Armenian նոր (nor, “new”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /noˈu̯er.ka/, [noˈu̯ɛrkä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /noˈver.ka/, [noˈvɛrkä]

Noun

noverca f (genitive novercae); first declension

1. stepmother
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 3.769–770:

     Nȳsiadas nymphās puerum quaerente novercā
     hanc frondem cūnīs opposuisse ferunt

     When his stepmother was searching for the boy, the nymphs of Nysa
     carried this foliage to set against his cradle.
     (The Nysiads used ivy leaves to hide the cradle of baby Dionysus [Roman Liber or Bacchus] from Juno – ever-hostile to the children her husband Jupiter fathered with others – including this son of Jupiter and Semele.)

2. (by extension) a person, people, etc. who adopts the role of being a mother, especially to a foreigner.

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	noverca	novercae
Genitive	novercae	novercārum
Dative	novercae	novercīs
Accusative	novercam	novercās
Ablative	novercā	novercīs
Vocative	noverca	novercae

Derived terms

• novercālis
• novercor

Descendants

• Aromanian: nuearcã, nearcã, nãearcã
• → Albanian: njerkë (ancient borrowing)
• → Italian: noverca

References

• “noverca”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “noverca”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• noverca in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• noverca in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.