adombrare

Forms

adombrare (first-person singular present adómbro, first-person singular past historic adombrài, past participle adombràto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] The older popular form is aombrare, used by Dante and later still in Tuscan.^[2][3][4][5] Dialect forms include reflexive Sicilian adumbrarsi and Neapolitan adumbrarse.^[6]

Etymology

It is a learned word: it is borrowed from Latin adumbrāre (“to shade; to sketch”), also a technical term of Latin painting for drawing in light and shade or in outline.^{[2][7][8][9][1]} The Latin verb is formed from ad- and umbrō (“to shade”), from umbra (“shadow”).^[10][1][11] In that sense the Latin verb rendered a Greek painters' word.^[9][12]

Latin adumbrō lived on in popular speech in Old French aombrer (12th century) and Catalan aombrar (13th century).^[6][13] The LEI also lists Italian aombrare among the popular outcomes, while REW takes the old form from the French verb; the forms that keep the -d- before a back vowel, the standard form among them, show a learned sound development, as does Middle French adombrer (16th century).^[6][13] The same Latin verb is Romanian adumbri and Old Occitan azombrar.^[13][1]

Latin umbra has been connected with Lithuanian ùnksna (“shade”), through an older *unksrā-, the only word for which such a cluster is reconstructed.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the poems of Inghilfredi of Lucca, in the second half of the 13th century, where it means “to stay close to someone like their own shadow”.^[15][6] By the late 13th century Ugurgieri used it for “to cast shade”, and the Fatti di Cesare for “to grow dark”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to cover with shade, darken” comes from the Latin verb, and Dante has the popular form s'aombra in the Purgatorio: Ora, se innanzi a me nulla s'aombra, / non ti maravigliar (“Now, if nothing casts a shadow before me, do not wonder”).^[2][12][3] From the same period the verb meant “to depict, outline, symbolize”, the old Latin sense of sketching, which Petrarch uses for the beloved's image in his mind: Tanto più bella il mio pensier l'adombra.^{[2][6][4][16]}

Old Italian gave it many figurative senses: to cloud the mind, to deceive, to dishonour, and in religious texts the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit at the conception of Christ, or the possession of a soul by the devil.^[15][6] From Boccaccio on it was said of horses and other animals that shy at a shadow, and then of people who take offence or grow suspicious; the reflexive adombrarsi in this sense is recorded from Campanella in 1639.^[2][6] In painting it meant “to shade” from Ariosto to the 18th century.^[6]

The modern dictionaries keep the transitive senses “to shade”, “to cloud, veil” and “to hint at, express in a veiled way”, and the reflexive “to take fright” and “to take offence”.^[8][4][3] The phrase adombrare un concetto, to outline an idea, is recorded from 1880.^[6]

Timeline

• Second half of the 13th century – Inghilfredi of Lucca uses adombrare.^[15]
• Late 13th century – Ugurgieri uses adumbrare for “to cast shade”.^[6]
• c. 1319 – Dante uses it for “to depict, symbolize”.^[6]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses the form aombrare for “to cover with shade”.^[2]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses it for “to take fright, grow suspicious”.^[6]
• Before 1364 – The noun adombramento is recorded, in Zanobi da Strata.^[2]
• 1532 – Ariosto uses it for shading in painting.^[6]
• 1639 – Campanella has reflexive adombrarsi, “to shy, take offence”.^[6]
• 1880 – Adombrare un concetto, “to outline an idea”, is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To shade, cover with shadow: i pini adombrano la spiaggia.^[8][4][3]
2. (transitive, figurative) To cloud, veil, dim.^[8][4][1]
3. (transitive, figurative) To express in a veiled way, hint at, symbolize: il romanzo adombra la vita dell'autore.^[8][4][16]
4. (transitive, literary) To depict, represent.^[8][16][1]
5. (transitive) To shade a drawing, ombreggiare.^[8][4][5]
6. (intransitive and pronominal) Of horses and other animals: to shy, take fright at a shadow or something else.^{[4][5][16][3]}
7. (pronominal, figurative) Of a person: to take offence, grow suspicious or gloomy: si adombra per ogni critica.^{[4][5][16][3]}

Word family

• adombrabile
• adombramento
• adombratura
• adombrazione

Related words

• ombra
• ombreggiare
• Latin adumbrō
• English adumbrate

Usage notes

The verb takes avere when transitive and essere when intransitive.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 863
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 64
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
16. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli