aggiunto

Forms

aggiunto (feminine aggiunta, masculine plural aggiunti, feminine plural aggiunte)^[1] Old Italian forms include agiunto, aggionto, adiunto, aiunto and azunto.^[2] Dialect forms are Piedmontese agiont, Neapolitan aggiunto and Sicilian aggiuntu.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Italian aggiungere (“to add”): the verb's past participle, used as an adjective and a noun.^[4][5][6][7] The participle continues Latin adiūnctus (“joined, added”), the past participle of adiungō (“to join to”).^[2][6][1][8] DEI gives the grammatical sense of an epithet its own heading and links it to the rhetorical term adiuncta of Cicero.^[9]

The Latin adjective lives on in Romanian ajuns, Old French ajointe, Spanish ayunto, Portuguese ajunto and Romansh agiunta.^[3] Learned forms with ⟨adj-⟩ are French adjoint and Catalan adjunt.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Brunetto Latini's Rettorica (Florence, about 1260–61), with the sense “added, in addition”.^[2][4] Old Italian also used it for things joined together and for hands joined in prayer, and, as a noun, for an official added to another to help him.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian aggiunto meant both “added, extra” and “joined, united”;^[2][10] Petrarch has two enemies, Beauty and Chastity, inseme agiunte (joined together).^[2][10] The sense “official who assists or stands in for another” is recorded in the Breve di Villa di Chiesa of 1327 in the form adiuncto, and in statutes of the 14th century.^[11][3] Bandello has aggiunto in 1554.^[11] Military Old Italian also called auxiliary soldiers aggiunti.^[2][12]

From the 16th century grammarians and critics used the noun for an adjective or epithet, a sense now literary.^[9][12][6] Titles such as capufficio aggiunto (1847), segretario aggiunto (1906) and capostazione aggiunto made the adjective a fixed part of official language.^[3] In mathematics it names an object associated with another of the same kind, such as the adjoint of a matrix or operator.^[7][4]

Timeline

• c. 1260–1261 – Brunetto Latini uses aggiunto in the Rettorica.^[2]
• 1327 – Adiuncto “deputy official” is recorded in the Breve di Villa di Chiesa.^[11]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses aggiunto for “reached”.^[11]
• Before 1374 – Petrarch uses it for “united, joined”.^[11]
• 1554 – Bandello uses aggiunto for a deputy official.^[11]
• 16th century – Aggiunto is used in grammar for an epithet.^[9]
• 1847 – Capufficio aggiunto is recorded in a military dictionary.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. additional, added: given or put in as an extra: imposta sul valore aggiunto.^[6][5]
2. deputy, assistant: of an official who helps or stands in for the holder of an office: procuratore aggiunto, sindaco aggiunto.^[13][4][6]
3. (mathematics) adjoint: associated with another object of the same kind: matrice aggiunta, operatore aggiunto.^[13][4][7]

Noun

1. An assistant or deputy; sostituto: aggiunto del sindaco, aggiunto giudiziario.^[13][4][6]
2. (literary, dated) An adjective, an epithet.^[13][4][7]

Word family

• autoaggiunto

Related words

• aggiunta
• giunto
• Latin adiunctus

Usage notes

Aggiunto is also simply the past participle of aggiungere and of aggiungersi (le pagine aggiunte alla fine).^[13][6] As a noun for an assistant it is often kept in the masculine for a woman too.^[4] Older Italian used aggiunto che as a conjunction meaning “given that, the more so as” (Bembo, Tasso).^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 700
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 86
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET