-eggiare

Forms

-eggiare (verb-forming suffix, first-person singular present -éggio, first-person singular past historic -eggiài, past participle -eggiàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin -ĭdiāre, the spoken Latin form of the verb-forming suffix from Ancient Greek -ίζειν (-ízō), which made verbs from nouns and adjectives.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Zingarelli calls the Greek suffix one of Indo-European origin.^[4] Wiktionary and Sabatini–Coletti start the chain from Late Latin -izāre, above all the ending of Church Latin, which copied the Greek one.^[1][7]

According to DELI, Greek first used the suffix for verbs of imitating the ways of a group of people, and such verbs passed into the Latin of the Church in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, as Late Latin baptizāre and Late Latin evangelizāre.^[8] The same suffix was later taken again from Latin as a learned word, giving -izzare, so that the two are doublets, the inherited and the learned form.^[8][1][7][5] Wiktionary compares Sicilian -ijari.^[1]

Meanings

Suffix

1. Forms verbs from nouns, meaning to act out, show or spread what the noun names: guerreggiare “to wage war”, lampeggiare “to flash”, ombreggiare “to shade”, corteggiare “to court”.^[9][5][7][3]
2. Forms verbs from adjectives, meaning to behave in the way the adjective describes or to show its quality: folleggiare “to act wildly”, biancheggiare “to show white”, scarseggiare “to run short”.^[9][5][3]
3. More rarely forms verbs from adverbs: indietreggiare “to draw back”.^[9][5][4]
4. Gives the verb an intensive, repeated or lasting sense: rumoreggiare “to keep making noise”, amoreggiare “to flirt”.^[7][4][5]

Word family

• guerreggiare
• ondeggiare
• biancheggiare
• folleggiare
• albeggiare
• corteggiare
• lampeggiare
• amoreggiare
• schiaffeggiare
• occhieggiare
• signoreggiare
• vaneggiare
• amareggiare
• scarseggiare
• indietreggiare

Related words

• -izzare
• Late Latin -izō

Usage notes

Unlike -izzare, which forms mostly transitive verbs, the verbs in -eggiare are usually intransitive, so the two suffixes rarely mean the same.^[5] The stress falls on the suffix: -éggio in the first person singular present.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
6. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana