ciao

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian ciao,^[2][3][4][5] a northern Italian dialect form:^[5][6] the American Heritage Dictionary gives Venetian ciau,^[7][8] and Wiktionary Venetian ciao (“hello, goodbye; your servant”), from s-ciavo (“servant, slave”).^[1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged traces it to reduced northern forms of the word for "slave", used as a set polite greeting.^[3] The dialect word is an alteration of Italian schiavo (“slave”),^[2][9][5][4] from the courteous formula sono vostro schiavo (“I am your servant”).^[5][8] Both go back to Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave, servant”),^[2][4][5][8] the same word as the ethnic name Sclavus, a Slav,^[5][10] which Wiktionary traces ultimately to Proto-Slavic *slověninъ.^[1] It is thus related to slave and Slav.^[1][4] Barnhart compares the greeting German Servus, literally "servant, slave", from Latin servus.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

An informal Italian greeting or farewell: 1929, in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms,^[2][3][7] a novel set in north-eastern Italy in the First World War, where Hemingway probably picked the word up.^[7] Green's Dictionary of Slang has an earlier private use, Ciaou Kid, in a Hemingway letter of 1919.^[11] Barnhart's first record is from 1957.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Venetian the phrase "(I am) your servant" became a casual greeting in Venetian.^[7] The same thing happened with Latin servus in southern Germany, Austria, Hungary and Poland, where it is likewise a casual greeting.^[7][5] In English the word was at first a quoted Italianism; the OED notes that it was also taken up as a fashionable expression by English speakers,^[2] and Hendrickson remarks on its frequent use in the United States in the late 20th century.^[12] It is also spelled phonetically chow or chaow in American and Australian slang from 1961.^[11] Hendrickson also reports a story that it comes from a Swiss German Tschau heard by Italians at Swiss ski resorts,^[12] a story he does not endorse.^[12]

Timeline

• 1919 – Ciaou, a farewell in a letter by Hemingway.^[11]
• 1929 – an informal greeting or farewell, hello or goodbye, in A Farewell to Arms.^[2][3][7]
• 1961 – the phonetic spelling chaow, goodbye.^[11]

Meanings

Interjection

1. (informal) Used to say hello or goodbye: “Ciao, see you on Monday,” she called from the door.^{[13][3][2][14]}

Related words

• slave
• Slav

Usage notes

Some speakers in Britain and the United States regard ciao as affected or pretentious,^[1] and the OED likewise describes it as used by English speakers as a fashionable expression.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
7. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Tréguer, Pascal, Word Histories, wordhistories.net, p. "Origin of ‘slave’ and ‘Slav’, of ‘robot’ and of ‘ciao’", 14 June 2017
11. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
12. ^ a b c Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press