noverca

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin noverca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /noˈvɛr.ka/, [n̺oˈvɛr̺kä]
• Hyphenation: no‧vèr‧ca

Noun

noverca f (plural noverche) (literary)

1. stepmother, stepdame

   Synonym: matrigna

   • 1321, Dante Alighieri, La divina commedia: Paradiso, Le Monnier, published 2002, Canto XVI, page 288, lines 58–63:

     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

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Latin

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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

Noun

noverca f (genitive novercae); first declension

1. stepmother
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

• Eastern Romance:
  • Aromanian: nuearcã, nearcã, nãearcã
• Italian: noverca
• → Albanian: njerkë

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.