Etymologically
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ammazzare

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Pronunciation

  • /am.matˈt͡sa.re/[1]

Forms

ammazzare (first-person singular present ammàzzo, first-person singular past historic ammazzài, past participle ammazzàto, auxiliary avére)[1] An old spelling is Old Italian amazzare, and northern texts have forms such as amaçare and amazar.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Italian a- + mazza (“club, mace”) + -are, a verb formed from a noun with a prefix and a suffix at once.[4][5][6][7] It must first have meant to strike or kill with a club, and narrowed to the stronger and more particular sense “to kill”.[4][5][8] The same derivation from the word for “club” is Spanish mazar and Portuguese maçar “to beat”, and Wiktionary adds Sicilian ammazzari, Venetian masar, Friulian maçâ, Occitan massar and Romansh mazzar.[9][10][1]

The noun mazza goes back to Vulgar Latin *mattea (“club”), of uncertain origin, which Nocentini infers from the diminutive Latin mateola, a farm tool in Cato, compared with Slavic and Sanskrit words for a hoe and a harrow.[4][5][9] Wiktionary mentions a less likely alternative, from Latin mactō (“to sacrifice; to slay”) through Vulgar Latin *mactiāre, and compares Old Italian mattare; the GDLI quotes Manno, who doubted the club and pointed to that old verb.[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Bono Giamboni's translation of Orosius, Florence 1292; the earliest senses are to kill by striking with a club, an axe or the like, to slaughter animals, and to kill with violence.[2] The Novellino (late 13th century) tells of a lord who “fecelo ammazzare e, del cuore, fe' fare una torta” (“had him killed, and had a pie made of his heart”).[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the verb for destroying things and for killing oneself.[2] The figurative sense “to wear out” is found before 1584 in Grazzini.[4] ammazzamento (1558, Annibal Caro) later also meant gruelling work (1865), ammazzasette (before 1665, Lippi) is a braggart who claims to have killed seven men, and ammazzatoio (1678) was the Florentine word for a slaughterhouse, later replaced by mattatoio, the form of Siena, Ancona and Rome.[4]

Ammazzare il tempo is to kill time, and in card games a higher card “kills” a lower one.[6][7] In Rome ammazzalo! (euphemistically ammappelo!) is an exclamation of surprise.[7]

Timeline

  • Second half of the 13th century – First record.[6][5]
  • 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it in his Orosius.[2]
  • Late 13th century – The Novellino uses it.[4]
  • 1558 – Ammazzamento is recorded.[4]
  • Before 1584 – The sense “to wear out” is recorded.[4]
  • Before 1665 – Lippi uses ammazzasette.[4]
  • 1678 – Ammazzatoio “slaughterhouse” is recorded.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To kill, especially with violence: Il bandito ammazzò il guardiano e fuggì con l'oro.[6][7][11]
  2. To slaughter livestock: Il contadino ammazza un agnello per Pasqua.[6][7][11]
  3. To cause death: Quell'inverno il freddo ammazzò molti vecchi.[6][7]
  4. (figurative) To beat badly, as in ammazzare di botte.[6][7]
  5. (figurative) To exhaust, wear out: Questo trasloco mi sta ammazzando.[6][11][7]
  6. (figurative) To depress; to spoil or destroy something.[6][7][11]
  7. (card games) To take an opponent's card with a higher one.[6][7][11]
  8. (pronominal, ammazzarsi) To kill oneself; to be killed in an accident.[11]

Word family

  • ammazzamento
  • ammazzasette
  • ammazzatoio
  • ammazzatore
  • mazza

Usage notes

DEI and the GDLI record a separate, obsolete and jocular ammazzare “to make into bunches”, from mazzo, used by Lippi of garlic and onions, and the TLIO has a Sicilian verb from mazzo in 1371–1381.[10][3][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 166
  11. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse