annegare

Forms

annegare (first-person singular present annégo or annègo, first-person singular past historic annegài, past participle annegàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *adnecāre, formed from Latin necō (“to kill”) with the prefix ad-.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Nocentini starts instead from *innecāre with the locative prefix in-, which takes the Tuscan form ⟨an-⟩ as in annaspare and annaffiare;^[6][7][8] Prati and REW compare ēnecō (“to kill, wear out”) with a change of prefix.^[6][7][8] Already in Late Latin the simple verb had the special sense “to drown”, in Gregory of Tours and in the Reichenau Glosses.^[9][10]

The word is shared by Catalan anegar, Spanish anegar, Portuguese anegar, Romanian îneca and Sicilian annigari, while French noyer and Occitan negar go back to the simple verb.^[6][8][1] Southern Italy has only the type ⟨affucari⟩ instead.^[9]

The Latin verb is formed from nex (“violent death, murder”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *neḱ-s (“death”), the root of Ancient Greek νεκρός (nekrós, “dead body”) and of a verb meaning “to perish, disappear”.^[11][6] The ⟨-g-⟩ of the Italian verb is a northern voicing of Latin ⟨-c-⟩.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Contrasto of Cielo d'Alcamo (1231–50), a Sicilian poem copied by Tuscans.^[5] DELI dates the transitive sense “to kill by holding under water” to Giamboni, before 1292, and the intransitive “to die by drowning” to Francesco da Barberino, before 1348.^[2] The oldest citation, in Brunetto Latini, still has the Latin sense “to suffocate”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for death by suffocation in general as well as by drowning, and also for “to dip, soak”.^[5] Dante calls on Capraia and Gorgona to dam the Arno so that it may drown every soul in Pisa (sì ch'elli annieghi in te ogni persona).^[10] The old language had also the form anniegare.^[10]

Figurative senses grew early: to lose oneself, to be overwhelmed by sin or by adverse fortune, and in mystical writing the annihilation of the self in divine love.^[5] Leopardi writes of thought that “drowns” in immensity (tra questa Immensità s'annega il pensier mio).^[4] In modern Italian one annega i dispiaceri nel vino, drowning one's sorrows, and one can annegare in un mare di guai.^[4][3] Lucchese has anneghito “worn out”.^[9][8]

Timeline

• 1231–1250 – Cielo d'Alcamo uses the verb in the Contrasto.^[5]
• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses annegare “to drown (someone)”.^[2]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses annegato.^[2]
• Before 1348 – Francesco da Barberino uses the intransitive “to drown, die by drowning”.^[2]
• 14th century – Annegamento is recorded in a translation of Saint Bernard.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To drown, kill by holding under water or another liquid: cercarono di annegarlo nel lago.^[3][4][1]
2. (transitive, figurative) To try to forget something by drinking: annegare il dolore nell'alcol.^[3][4]
3. (intransitive) To drown, die by suffocation in water or another liquid: un pescatore è annegato al largo.^[3][4][1]
4. (intransitive, figurative) To be overwhelmed, sink in a hopeless situation.^[3][4]
5. (literary, figurative) To lose oneself, be lost.^[3][4]

Word family

• annegamento
• annegato

Related words

• affogare
• Latin necō
• French noyer
• Spanish anegar

Usage notes

An older annegare (and annegarsi) meant “to renounce, deny oneself”, a learned variant of abnegare from ecclesiastical Latin abnegāre, recorded from the end of the 13th century; its noun annegamento meant “self-denial” in Jacopone (1306).^[13][3][1] The phrase annegare in un bicchiere d'acqua means to be defeated by the slightest difficulty.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 56
8. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 211
10. ^ 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
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 117