albore

Forms

albore m (plural albori)^[1] Old Italian forms include albor, albur and albure.^[2] Dialect forms include Genoese arbô, Neapolitan arbore and Sicilian arburi.^[3]

Etymology

DELI calls it a learned word: it is borrowed from Late Latin albor (“whiteness”), a derivative of albus (“white”).^[4][5][1] The LEI instead lists it among the inherited outcomes of the Latin word, with the dialect forms of Liguria, Tuscany, Naples and Sicily.^[3] The Latin noun is formed from the adjective with the suffix -or.^[1][6] Devoto calls it the abstract noun of albeō (“to be white”).^[7]

In the sense “first light of dawn” the same word is Old French abor, Old Occitan albor, Catalan albor, Spanish albor and Portuguese alvor, and Romanian alboare means “light, glimmer”.^[3][8][9] The Sicilian forms are Spanish loans according to the LEI.^[3]

The adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *alβos and Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰ-o- (“white”); its cognates include Umbrian alfu and Ancient Greek ἀλφός (alphós, “dull-white leprosy”).^[10][1] In the Romance languages the adjective itself gave way to the Germanic loan that became bianco, and survives only in relics, while the noun alba spread everywhere except Romanian.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giacomino Pugliese's Resplendiente (1234–1235), a Sicilian poem in an eastern Venetian copy, where the lady is stella d’albore, “star of the dawn”.^[2][12] DELI's first record is in Pier della Vigna before 1249, with the sense “brightness of the sky, dawn”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the word meant both the first light of day and any pale, diffuse light: Brunetto Latini wrote of albore della luna before 1294.^[3][2] Guinizelli's morning star appears anzi che ’l giorno rend’albore (“before the day gives back its light”), and in the Purgatorio Dante has Vedi l’albor, che per lo fummo raia (“see the light that shines through the smoke”).^[12][13] The TLIO also records the sense “whiteness”, of foam, which the LEI finds outside Italian only in Old Occitan.^[2][3]

The figurative plural albori, “the beginnings” of something, especially of a cultural or political movement, appears in Marino before 1625.^[4] In the modern language the word is literary in its proper senses, and its everyday use is this plural.^[5][14][15]

Timeline

• 1234–1235 – Giacomino Pugliese uses albore “dawn”.^[2][12]
• Before 1249 – Pier della Vigna uses it for the brightness of the sky.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini writes albore della luna “moonlight”.^[3]
• About 1319 – Dante uses the plural albori for the light of dawn.^[3]
• Before 1625 – Marino uses albori for the beginnings of something.^[4]
• 1909 – Pirandello writes albore lunare.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) Whiteness; a faint, diffuse glow: l’albore della luna.^{[16][17][18][1]}
2. (literary) The first light of day, dawn.^{[5][14][19][1]}
3. (figurative, usually plural) The beginnings of a period or movement: agli albori del cinema.^{[5][15][16][1]}

Related words

• alba
• albo
• albeggiare
• Latin albus

Usage notes

A different word, àlbore, stressed on the first syllable and masculine or feminine, is an old form of albero “tree”: Boccaccio writes questa albore, sotto le cui ombre divoti porgiamo i prieghi.^[12][18][14] It continues Latin arbor with the change of /r/ to /l/ that Latin itself already shows, and is found from the 13th to the 16th century, later in Tuscan dialect writers.^[20][12] In verse it could also be stressed albóre for the rhyme.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 h i Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 1500
4. ^ a b c d e 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 1
12. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
19. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
20. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 111