accadere

Forms

accadere (third-person only, third-person singular present accàde, third-person singular past historic accàdde, past participle accadùto, third-person singular future accadrà, auxiliary èssere)^[1] Old Italian has present subjunctive forms accaggia and accaggiono beside accada and accadono.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *accadēre, which took the place of classical Latin accidere (“to happen, to fall upon”).^[4][5][6][7] The Vulgar Latin verb was remade on *cadēre, the form of cadere (“to fall”) with a long vowel in the ending, with the prefix ad-.^[4][5][6][8] The LEI records the Latin form from the 1st century; it also continues in Old French achaïr, and a form of another conjugation in Catalan acaure.^[9] Nocentini and REW add Spanish acaecer, older Old Spanish acaer, and Portuguese aquecer.^[5][10]

The classical verb is the source of the learned accidente.^[5][11] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *kad-e/o-; de Vaan connects it, with a query, with a root meaning “to fall” in Sanskrit and Greek.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni's Vizi e Virtudi, a Florentine text written before 1292, in the sense “to happen, to come about”.^[3][4][7] Guittone d'Arezzo has the subjunctive: “Come accade a' buoni, così, fratello, mi pare che accaggia a' cattivi” (as it happens to the good, so, brother, it seems to me it happens to the wicked).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the verb for “to be fitting, to be needed” (Cavalca, 1342), for “to come along at the right moment” (Ariosto, 1533) and for the stars “to be found” somewhere, and once for “to fall”.^[9][3][13] Foscolo could still write that there was no point (non accade) in speaking of the common people.^[14] Tommaseo noted that accadere implies more chance than avvenire.^[13] A Tuscan proverb says tra la bocca e il boccone mille cose accadono (between the mouth and the morsel a thousand things happen).^[13]

The past participle accaduto became a noun, “what has happened, the event”, in Leopardi, and by 1848 it was common.^[4] Accadimento, recorded at the end of the 14th century, was an old word that historians brought back into use, as Migliorini noted in 1950.^[4] In philosophy l'accadere is becoming, what happens in time, as opposed to being.^[7][15]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses accadere.^[4][3]
• 1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses the reflexive acadersi “to be fitting”.^[9]
• 1342 – Cavalca uses the verb for “to be needed”.^[9]
• End of the 14th century – Accadimento is first recorded.^[4]
• 1533 – Ariosto uses it for “to come along at the right time”.^[9][7]
• 1848 – Ugolini calls the noun accaduto frequent.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To happen, to take place, often by chance or suddenly: Che cosa è accaduto ieri sera in piazza?^{[7][6][16][17][1]}
2. (impersonal) To happen that, or to happen to do something: Accade spesso che il treno parta in ritardo.^{[7][6][16][17]}
3. (archaic) To come along, especially at the right moment.^[7][3]
4. (archaic) To be fitting or necessary.^{[7][17][16][3]}

Noun

1. (philosophy) Becoming, what happens in history and time, as opposed to being.^[7][15]

Word family

• accaduto
• accadimento
• riaccadere

Related words

• cadere
• accidente
• Latin accido

Usage notes

The verb takes essere and is used only in the third person, with the event as its subject.^[6][15][1] Sono cose che accadono is said of unpleasant things that have to be accepted.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 21
9. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 237
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli