It. <i>stramazzo</i> und dt. <i>stromatze</i> ‘mit Stroh gefüllte Matratzeʼ: eine ungewöhnliche Koinzidenz

Abstract In her 1955 study on Italian loanwords in German, Marjatta Wis considered the German words stramatzen , stromatzen , stromaczen and stromatzo as borrowings from It. stramazzo ‘straw-filled mattressʼ. In actual fact, however, the forms go back to two different etyma. While It. stramazzo , which is derived from strame ‘strawʼ, can be unambiguously identified only in Sebald Rieter's pilgrim travelogue, the other cases mentioned by Wis are based on the synonymous and phono-morphologically very similar Upper German stromatze , from stro(h) ‘strawʼ + mazze ‘matʼ.