amaricare

Forms

amaricare (first-person singular present amàrico, first-person singular past historic amaricài, past participle amaricàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian forms include the participles Old Italian amaricato and Old Italian amaricao.^[2] A form ammaricare with double ⟨m⟩ is recorded in dictionaries from Florio (1598) on.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin amāricāre (“to make bitter; to embitter”), a verb of Christian Latin.^[4][5][1][3] Its concrete sense “to make bitter” is found in the Vulgate's Apocalypse, and the figurative “to sadden” in Saint Augustine.^[3][6] DEI cites it already from the Itala.^[7] The verb is formed from Latin amārus (“bitter”).^[1][8][9]

The same verb survives in Romansh amargiar, Old Occitan amargar, Catalan amargar, Spanish amargar, Portuguese amargar and Galician amargar.^[3][10][11] Italian lacks the adjective *amāricus that gave Catalan amarg, Spanish amargo and Portuguese amargo.^[7][10] The northern Italian forms that keep a voiceless /k/ come from literary Italian.^[3]

The origin of amārus is not certain.^[12] De Vaan finds the comparison with Sanskrit and Germanic words for “sour” the most convincing, from a possible Proto-Indo-European *h₂em-ro-.^[12] Wiktionary instead connects it with Ancient Greek ὠμός (ōmós, “raw”).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Bolognese Matteo dei Libri, second half of the 13th century, in the sense “to embitter, to grieve”.^[2][5] Jacopone, before 1306, has quanto eo so amaricata (“how embittered I am”).^[13][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb meant to grieve or embitter, often in the reflexive or the participle amaricato; a sermon on the Passion uses it concretely, of the bitter drink given to Christ, which only made his lips, tongue and mouth bitter.^[2][14] From the same verb, with the prefix r-, came rammaricare “to grieve”, recorded from 1292, which became the common word.^[6][15] In the southern dialects ammaricarsi and similar forms still mean to grieve or complain, and in Calabria also of the sky clouding over.^[3]

Amaricare itself is now rare.^[4][16] Modern dictionaries give it the concrete sense of making a substance bitter, not unpleasantly, as with a digestive, and an intransitive sense “to taste bitter”; its present participle amaricante is also a noun.^[17][5][16]

Timeline

• Second half of the 13th century – Matteo dei Libri uses amaricare “to embitter”.^[2]
• 1292 – Bono Giamboni has the derivative rammaricare.^[6]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses the participle amaricata.^[13][4]
• 1598 – Florio's dictionary records ammaricare.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To make bitter, usually not unpleasantly: Il liquorista amarica l'infuso con radice di genziana.^{[4][5][17][16]}
2. (transitive, figurative, literary) To embitter, to sadden; the same as amareggiare.^{[4][5][17][9][8]}
3. (intransitive) To have a bitter taste.^[4][16][1]

Word family

• rammaricare
• amaricante

Related words

• amareggiare
• amaro
• Latin amārus

Usage notes

Devoto–Oli and Treccani mark the verb as uncommon, and Zingarelli as obsolete.^[5][16][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 g h Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 481
4. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 151
8. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
9. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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, 375
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse