Caciara

The word caciara 'noise' entered Roman dialect in the late 19th century; it was adopted by everyday Italian language during the second half of 20th. The origin of this word is not entirely clear: some refer it to the cheese factory (in Italian, precisely named caciaia), others rather explain this phrase as a distortion of the substantive gazzarra 'high noise'. These two hypotheses have never been subjected to close discussion. This essay represents, then, the first attempt to deal with the etymology of caciara: the traditional interpretations are investigated and, eventually, the ancient noun sciarra ('wrangle' or 'noise') is proposed as a new possible base for caciara.