affogare

Forms

affogare (first-person singular present affógo or affògo, first-person singular past historic affogài, past participle affogàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] Old Italian also wrote the verb with a voiceless consonant, as Old Italian affocare (affocato, affocaro).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *affōcāre, a spoken Latin form that took the place of classical Latin offōcāre (“to choke, strangle”).^[4][5][6][1] The classical verb was formed from faux (“throat”) (genitive faucis) with the prefix ob-, and the new prefix af- came from the many verbs in which ad- stood before ⟨f⟩.^[4][7][8] Devoto read the verb as built on the phrase ad fauces (“at the throat”), that is “to take by the throat”.^[9][10] Nocentini instead derives it from a spoken Latin *fōces (“throat”), the source of foce.^[5]

The ⟨g⟩ between vowels is the northern voicing of /k/, so the Tuscan word came from the north, as DEI and Devoto note; southern Italian keeps the voiceless consonant (⟨affucari⟩).^[11][9] The verb is found across Romance but not in Romanian: Occitan afogar, Catalan afogar, Spanish ahogar, Portuguese afogar and Logudorese affogare.^[5][12][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Roman Storie de Troia e de Roma of 1252–1258, and the oldest sense it lists is to die or to kill by stopping the breath, by squeezing the throat or under water.^[2][10] DELI's earliest dated use is figurative: Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294, uses it for “to stifle, put out, oppress”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for any death by suffocation: Boccaccio has a man affogato by a burst vessel near the heart, and a commentator on Dante tells how Manfred smothered Frederick II with a pillow (affogollo).^[3] Already in Old Italian it was also used of plants choked in their growth and of smoke, and in the figurative sense of crushing or oppressing.^[2] Drowning, the sense that now prevails, is dated by DELI to Giordano da Pisa in 1305–1306, and the intransitive sense of being submerged to Giovanni Villani.^[4] Tommaseo already called drowning the more common use.^[13]

The older sense “to strangle” lasted long: Manzoni still wrote it in the 1827 edition of I promessi sposi and replaced it with soffogare in the edition of 1840–1842.^[4] In cooking the verb names poaching eggs out of their shell in boiling water or sauce, which gave uova affogate.^[8][7] Sailors say a boat affoga when it sits too deep in the water.^[8][6]

Timeline

• 1252–1258 – The Storie de Troia e de Roma give the first record.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses the participle affogato.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for “stifle, oppress”.^[4]
• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses it for “drown”.^[4]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses it intransitively for “be flooded, submerged”.^[4]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it for killing by stopping the breath.^[4]
• 1840–1842 – Manzoni replaces it with soffogare in the sense “strangle”.^[4]
• 1988 – Strafogarsi, to stuff oneself with food, is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To drown: to kill by holding under water or another liquid: l'hanno affogato nel canale.^[6][8][1]
2. (transitive, literary) To smother or strangle; to put out a fire by covering it.^[6][10][1]
3. (transitive, figurative) To try to forget a sorrow by drowning it in drink or other things: affogare i dispiaceri nel vino.^[6][8]
4. (transitive, figurative) To oppress or overwhelm; to bury someone under something: ci affoga di chiacchiere.^[6][14][1]
5. (transitive, cooking) To poach, especially eggs without their shell.^[7][8][1]
6. (intransitive) To drown, to die in water: per poco non affogava nella piscina.^[6][10][1]
7. (intransitive, figurative) To be overwhelmed, swamped, or to suffocate from heat or thirst: affogare nei debiti.^[6][10][8]
8. (intransitive, nautical) Of a boat, to sit too low in the water.^[6][8]

Word family

• affogato
• strafogarsi
• affogamento
• affogarsi

Related words

• soffocare
• foce
• fauce
• Latin offōcō

Usage notes

Fixed phrases: affogare in un bicchier d'acqua “to drown in a glass of water”, to be lost at the smallest difficulty;^[15][8][14] o bere o affogare “drink or drown”, to have to choose between two evils;^[15][8][14] affogare nell'oro, to be very rich.^[15][8][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 1, 219
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 77
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli