parrucca

Italian

Etymology

Uncertain; according to the OED, possibly related to Latin pilus (“hair”), but there are phonetic difficulties.^[1] It could instead be related to parrocchetto (“parakeet”), referring to the feathers.^[2] Compare its descendant French perruque and also Corsican and Sicilian pilucca and Romagnol piróca.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /parˈruk.ka/
Rhymes: -ukka
Hyphenation: par‧rùc‧ca

Noun

parrucca f (plural parrucche)

wig

Derived terms

Descendants

→ French: perruque (see there for further descendants)
→? Bavarian: baroke
- → Hungarian: paróka

References

^ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Parrucca”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.
^ “peruke”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.