allevare

Forms

allevare (first-person singular present allèvo, first-person singular past historic allevài, past participle allevàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian alevare and Old Italian alevar, and allievare is recorded from the 16th century.^[2][3] In the dialects it is Genoese allevà, Romagnol alvêr and Sicilian addivari.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin allevāre (“to lift up, raise”), formed from Latin ad- + levō (“to raise”).^{[4][5][6][1][7]} The Latin verb survives only in Old Friulian alevar, Old French alever “to bring up”, Old Occitan alevar and Italian, according to the LEI.^[3] Nocentini also gives Catalan alevar.^[5] In Occitan and Catalan it also meant “to levy a tax” and “to educate”.^[8]

The Latin simplex levō comes from Latin levis (“light”), according to Wikizionario.^[9]

The noun allievo “pupil” is a back-formation from the verb.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Splanamento of Patecchio of Cremona, in the first half of the 13th century.^[2] DELI dates alevare “to bring up a child” to the 13th-century poem Della caducità della vita umana and allevare to Dante.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to lift up” survived beside the new one in Old Italian, where the TLIO records “to raise morally”, “to raise to an office”, “to build” and “to take away”.^[2] A Florentine text of about 1284 uses allevare for founding a confraternity.^[3] The main line ran from nurturing a child to educating it, a sense recorded before 1292 in Bono Giamboni, and to rearing animals and growing plants, before 1342 in Domenico Cavalca.^[4]

Tommaseo notes that the image does not come from the Christian custom of lifting a child at the font, since the Latins used Latin tollere for taking up a newborn.^[10] The proverbial allevarsi la serpe in seno, to nurse a snake in one's bosom, is said of doing good to someone who will repay it with harm.^[11]

The derivatives followed the senses: allevamento is recorded before 1406, and in the sense of breeding animals from 1875.^[4]

Timeline

• First half of the 13th century – Patecchio of Cremona uses the verb.^[2]
• 13th century – Alevare in Della caducità della vita umana.^[4]
• About 1284 – A Florentine text uses allevare for founding a confraternity.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for educating.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Rallevare is recorded.^[5]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses allevare.^[4]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it for rearing animals and plants.^[4]
• Before 1406 – Allevamento appears in Francesco da Buti.^[4]
• 1875 – Allevamento is first recorded for animal breeding.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bring up or raise a child, giving it the care it needs to grow: L'hanno allevata i nonni.^{[6][12][13][1]}
2. Of animals, to raise their young: La lupa alleva i suoi piccoli.^[6][12]
3. (dated) To breastfeed: allevare al petto.^[6][14][13]
4. (figurative) To educate, to prepare for life: un ragazzo allevato con buoni principi.^[6][12][11]
5. To breed animals or grow plants, usually for profit: allevare conigli.^{[6][12][13][1]}

Word family

• allevamento
• allevatore
• allevatrice
• allevata
• allievo
• rallevare

Related words

• levare
• alleviare
• Latin allevō

Usage notes

GRADIT also lists a literary allevare that is a variant of alleviare “to lighten, relieve”, and Tommaseo records it with the sense of Latin allevo in Latin.^[6][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 111
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse