affiggere

Forms

affiggere (first-person singular present affìggo, first-person singular past historic affìssi, past participle affìsso, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin affīgō (“to fasten to, fix on”), formed in Latin from ad- (“to”) and fīgō (“to drive in, fasten”).^[2][3][4][1] The LEI finds the verb in all of Romance except Romanian: Old Occitan afigir, Catalan afegir, Old Spanish afier and Sardinian affíere; besides the participle Latin affixus it assumes a popular Vulgar Latin *affictus, which gave Old Italian affitto.^[5][6] The doubled /ɡɡ/ is the regular lengthening of a consonant after the stress in a word stressed on the antepenult.^[7]

Latin fīgō goes back to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ-, with Lithuanian díegti (“to plant, sting”) as a cognate.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Restoro d'Arezzo, 1282, in the Aretine dialect.^[9][3] The first sense the TLIO gives is “to fasten, fix firmly”, and DELI dates “to fix firmly” and the reflexive “to gaze fixedly” to Dante.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the verb for posting notices in public, for driving in and piercing, and for stopping or halting; the reflexive affiggersi meant to fix one's gaze or mind on something, as in Dante's eagle that never so gazed at the sun (aquila sì non li s'affisse unquanco).^[9][2][10]

DELI dates “to attach firmly, hang up” to Ariosto's Orlando furioso (1516), in the form affigere, and affiggere in this sense to Traiano Boccalini (1612–1613).^[2] The sense “to post up a notice in a public place” became the main one, while “to drive in”, “to fix the eyes on” and Leopardi's affiggere le labbra, to press one's lips, are now literary.^[4][11][12]

Timeline

• 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo uses affiggere.^[9][3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for “to fix firmly” and, reflexively, “to gaze fixedly”.^[2]
• 1516 – Ariosto uses affigere for hanging something up.^[2]
• 1612–1613 – Traiano Boccalini uses affiggere in this sense.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To post, affix: to put up a notice or poster on a wall or board for the public: hanno affisso l'orario nuovo all'ingresso.^[4][11][12]
2. (transitive, literary) To drive in, thrust into.^[4][11][13]
3. (transitive, literary) To fix the eyes or mind on something.^[4][11][10]
4. (transitive, literary) To press firmly, to imprint, as a kiss.^[4][12][10]
5. (reflexive, literary) To stop, settle; to gaze fixedly, to concentrate.^[10][14][12]

Word family

• affisso
• affissione
• riaffiggere

Related words

• figgere
• fisso
• Latin affīgō

Usage notes

Affiggere is conjugated like figgere: affissi in the past historic and affisso as past participle, with an old participle affitto.^[10][13][11]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 1226
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana