ammendare

Forms

ammendare (first-person singular present ammèndo, first-person singular past historic ammendài, past participle ammendàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The older spelling is Old Italian amendare, with a single ⟨m⟩.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Nocentini takes it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *ammendāre (“to correct, improve”), a form of Latin ēmendō with the prefix ex- replaced by ad-.^[5] The change happened in Late Latin, since it is also found in Aromanian amindari (“to win, obtain”); in Ibero-Romance the prefix in- was used instead.^[5][6] DELI, DEI, Devoto–Oli, Treccani and Wiktionary also explain it from ēmendō with a change of prefix.^{[2][6][7][8][1]}

Others see French behind it.^[9][10] GRADIT derives it from French amender, recorded from the 12th century.^[9] Sabatini–Coletti and Gabrielli think French may have caused the prefix change, and Devoto speaks of a cross with the French verb.^{[9][10][11][12]} The LEI lists the verb among the borrowed forms rather than the inherited ones.^[13]

The prefixed verb is found across Romance: amender, Occitan amendar, Spanish enmendar and Portuguese emendar, while Catalan esmenar and Old Occitan esmendar point to a form with ex-.^[5][14][13] The Latin verb is formed from ex- and menda (“fault, blemish”), a variant of mendum.^[15][16] The deeper origin of mendum is unclear: de Vaan compares an Old Irish word for “blemish” and only tentatively suggests a root meaning “to think”.^[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a document from Montieri of 1219.^[4][17] DELI's first literary record is Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294, with the form amendare and the sense “to correct”.^[2] Guittone wrote that every sin needs purging and correction, amendando omo (“correcting oneself”).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for correcting faults and persons, for remedying a bad situation, for amending a law, for making good a wrong, and in religion for doing penance and expiating a sin.^[4] The reflexive “to correct oneself” is recorded in Brunetto Latini, before 1294, and the farming sense “to improve land” around 1350 in the Italian Crescenzi.^[2] Boccaccio has ammendate il vostro fallo (“make amends for your fault”), and Petrarch per ammendar la lunga guerra (“to make up for the long war”).^[9][10]

In the 19th century Tommaseo noted that one amends a law when one changes it for the better, and held that the farming sense was no Gallicism but already in Pliny.^[18] The noun ammenda “amends” is from the 13th century and took the sense “fine, penalty” before 1294; rammendare, first “to correct” (1304), came to mean “to darn” by 1839.^[2][5] Today ammendare is literary in its moral sense and technical in agriculture, where the soil is treated with ammendanti.^[9][7][19]

Timeline

• 1219 – A document from Montieri uses the verb.^[4][17]
• 13th century – The noun ammenda appears.^[2][5]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses amendare “to correct”, and Brunetto Latini the reflexive.^[2]
• 1304 – Rammendare is recorded in the sense “to correct”.^[5]
• About 1350 – The Italian Crescenzi uses the verb for improving land.^[2]
• 1839–1841 – Rammendare is recorded in the sense “to darn”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, literary) To amend, to correct, to emend; to make amends for a fault: Cercò di ammendare il torto fatto al fratello.^{[9][7][10][17][8]}
2. (transitive, agriculture) To improve the soil by treating it with soil amendments.^{[9][7][10][17][8]}
3. (reflexive, ammendarsi, literary) To correct oneself, to mend one's ways.^{[7][10][17][11]}

Word family

• ammenda
• ammendamento
• ammendante
• rammendare
• rammendo

Related words

• emendare
• menda
• Latin ēmendō
• French amender

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ 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, 404
4. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
5. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 167
7. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
9. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 21, 384
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
18. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
19. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)