allignare

Forms

allignare (first-person singular present allìgno, first-person singular past historic allignài, past participle allignàto, auxiliary avére or èssere)^[1] Early forms include Old Italian alignare and Old Italian aligniare.^[2]

Etymology

Nocentini takes it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *allignāre, formed from Latin lignum (“wood”) with the prefix ad- and the sense “to put out wood, a stem; to become a plant”.^[3] DELI calls it a parasynthetic compound of the same Latin noun, taken in the sense “plant, tree”, and GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Treccani also derive it from lignum with the prefix.^[4][5][6][7] DEI and the TLIO point to Medieval Latin allignare, which with its noun allignamentum (1124) meant only “to gather firewood”.^[8][2] Devoto glosses the Medieval Latin verb as “to make wood”, that is “to harden, to ripen”.^[9] In Sicily allignari still means “to harden”, and Abruzzese allegnà “to grow up well”.^[8]

lignum probably first meant “wood gathered for the fire”, from the root Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect”) of legō; de Vaan finds a derivation from *legʰ- (“to lie”), as “fallen wood”, equally possible.^[10][1] The change of ⟨-egn-⟩ to ⟨-ign-⟩ in the Latin word is regular.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a poem of Re Enzo, from before 1272, in Tuscan, with the sense “to take root, to settle”, already also used figuratively.^[2][4] Old Italian also used it for “to grow, to spread, to take hold” and once for “to join, to merge”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb was used above all of plants: the Italian translation of Crescenzi says that where the cold is too great for the pomegranate to last or take root, it must be sheltered, and Mattioli wrote that olive trees do not take root in the mountains or in cold places.^[11] Fazio has la mal’erba alligna (“the weed takes root”), and by extension the verb was also used of animals.^[11] Tommaseo noted that it says more than its origin in lignum suggests: not only that a plant survives, but that it settles so that it can harden and bear fruit, and it is used of non-woody plants and grafts as well.^[12]

The figurative sense, of feelings, vices and ideas that take hold in someone or among people, is now one of the main uses, and a loanword can be said not to have taken root in Italian.^[5][13][14]

Timeline

• Before 1272 – Re Enzo uses allignare “to take root”.^[4][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, of plants) To take root and grow, to attecchire: In questo terreno sassoso il castagno non alligna.^{[5][6][13][15][7]}
2. (intransitive, figurative) Of feelings, vices or ideas: to take hold, to be rooted, to spread: Tra quei soldati allignava un forte malcontento.^{[5][6][13][15][14]}
3. (intransitive, figurative, literary) To develop, to thrive.^[15][16][5]

Word family

• allignamento
• rallignare

Related words

• legno
• tralignare
• attecchire
• Latin lignum

Usage notes

The auxiliary is usually avere, less often essere.^[13][15][7] The verb is usually construed with in or tra for the place where something takes hold.^[7][13]

References

1. ^ a b c 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. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c 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 e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 131
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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, 328
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli