Art & MusicGreek → English
Sgraffito
/sɡrəˈfiːtoʊ/noun
A decorative technique in which a top layer of plaster or glaze is scratched through to reveal a contrasting layer beneath.
The Greek roots
γράφειν
gráphein
to scratch, write
Literally: “scratched away”
Follow a root:γράφειν39 words
The story of the word
Greek γράφειν meant scratching before it meant writing, which is what a stylus does to wax. Latin took the noun as graphium, Italian made a verb graffiare, to scratch, and added the intensifying s-. The same Italian verb gives graffiti, so the Renaissance façades of Bologna and the wall of a railway underpass are named by one root doing exactly what it always meant.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
graffitigraphitebiographyparagraph
In a sentence
The house fronts in the old town are covered in sgraffito, grey vines cut through white lime.
She finished the bowl with sgraffito, scoring lines through the black slip to the red clay.