lotto

Etymology

It is borrowed from French loto and directly borrowed from Italian lotto (“lottery; lot”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} recorded in Italian before 1536 and in French in 1778.^[3] The Italian word is from French lot (“lot, share”),^[3][5] lot (“lot, share, reward, prize”) in Old French,^[2][7] a borrowing from Frankish or another Germanic source;^[2][5] the American Heritage Dictionary gives Frankish *lot.^[7] It is related to Old English hlot and Old Frisian hlot, and so to lot.^[2][4][5] The OED compares German Lotto, a state lottery played with numbers on a card, recorded from 1715.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A game of chance in which numbers are drawn and called at random and the players cover the matching numbers on cards: 1778, in a letter of J. Warner.^[3][2] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also date it to 1778, Barnhart in the form loto.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In Italian lotto meant a lottery; from the late 17th century it was also a kind of state lottery in which the players chose their numbers on a card instead of drawing lots, as in the lotto di Genova.^[3] The English game takes its name from the drawing of numbers to match those on the cards;^[2] the Shorter Oxford compares it to bingo, and Collins notes the British name housey-housey.^[6][8] The sense "a lottery" followed in 1787, at first of the Italian and German lotteries,^[3][6] and Etymonline dates it to 1827.^[2] It is now the name of various state lotteries, such as the national Lotto of New Zealand, in which the main winner must pick six numbers from 1 to 40,^[3][9] and the New York State lottery, whose slogans included "a dollar and a dream".^[10]

Timeline

• 1778 – a game of chance in which drawn numbers are matched on cards; also loto.^[3][4]
• 1787 – a lottery, especially a state lottery.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A game of chance like bingo, in which numbers are drawn at random and called out, and the players cover the matching numbers on their cards: The children played lotto after supper.^[8][5][3]
2. A lottery, especially a state or national one: He buys a lotto ticket every Saturday.^[8][3]

Related words

• lot
• lottery
• allot

Usage notes

The capitalised Lotto, as in Lotto rug or Lotto carpet, is a hand-knotted Turkish carpet with an arabesque pattern; it is named after the Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1556), who painted such carpets, and is recorded from 1931.^[3][6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Deverson, Tony; Kennedy, Graeme, eds. (2005), The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary, Auckland: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Lotto: Dollar and a Dream", 17 October 2004