Macchia

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈmɑːkiə/

Definitions

1. A type of dense and varied vegetation typically found in Mediterranean regions characterized by shrubs and hardy plants that thrive in arid conditions
2. A landscape defined by its thick growth of low trees and aromatic bushes, commonly seen in dry, rocky areas of the Mediterranean climate
3. A natural plant community consisting of thick, shrubby vegetation adapted to dry Mediterranean climates ; a terrain covered by compact, drought-tolerant bushes and small trees typical of southern European regions

Etymology: The Italian "macchia" began as a Latin word for a spot. Its ancestor, "macula," meant a stain, blemish or mark, and it is the source of English words like "macule," a flat skin spot. The sense of a spot on the landscape turned into the sense of a patch of ground covered in dense vegetation, so that a stretch of wild growth looked to speakers like a blotch on the land. The word was then carried into the Mediterranean world's other languages. Corsican "machja" and French "maquis" descend from the same stock, and English "maquis" was borrowed from French, where it came to name the scrub-covered hills of Corsica and southern France. French Resistance fighters during the Second World War took the name, hiding in that rough terrain. English "macchia" was borrowed directly from Italian, keeping the Italian spelling, and it is a doublet of "maquis," meaning two forms of one ancestor that arrived by different routes.