Etymologically
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antico

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Pronunciation

Forms

antico (feminine antica, masculine plural antichi, feminine plural antiche, superlative antichissimo)[1] Old forms include Old Italian antigo and antiquo, a Latinizing spelling.[2][3][4] Northern dialects have forms such as Venetian antigo and Lombard antìgh.[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin antīquus (“old, former, ancient”).[6][7][8][1] The LEI notes that the Latin adjective was already written with ⟨c⟩, and all the Romance languages except Romanian continue it; except for Spanish they also used the masculine form for the feminine.[5][9] The same word is Old French anti, Old Occitan antic, Catalan antic, Spanish antiguo, Portuguese antigo, Sardinian antigu and Romansh antic;[5][7][10] French antique is a learned form.[7] The humanists' antiquo was taken again from Latin.[5]

The Latin word is formed from ante (“before, in front of”).[6][7][8] Devoto explains the ending by the influence of posticus (“behind”) and propinquus (“near”).[11] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂énti-h₃kʷ-o-s (“facing the front”), from the roots of the preposition and of oculus (“eye”), and compares Sanskrit अन्तिक (antiká, “near”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Splanamento of Gerardo Patecchio of Cremona, from the first decades of the 13th century; the LEI's is the Fiori di filosafi of about 1274, and DELI's Dante's Vita nuova (1293–1294).[2][5][6] The sense was “belonging to or going back to the past, often the remote past”.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used antico of people for “aged, old”, a sense now literary: in the Commedia an old man is bianco per antico pelo, “white with old hair”.[2][12] Of an illness it meant “chronic”;[2] antico sangue was ancient, noble blood;[2] il serpente antico was Satan and la legge antica the Old Testament.[2] Old adverbial phrases were ab antico and per antico, “from the beginning”, and the LEI treats them as Latin turns of phrase;[2][5][12] all'antica, “in the old way”, is still used.[2][5][12]

The plural gli antichi named the people of antiquity as against the moderns, as in Dante's Convivio.[13] In modern usage storia antica is history up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and antico is also said of furniture and works of art at least a hundred years old.[14][8] The derivative anticaglia, “old-fashioned object”, recorded before 1348, spread to French antiquaille and Spanish antigualla.[6][5] DIFIT lists the English adjective antic (1548, “grotesque”) as a possible borrowing of the Italian word.[15]

Timeline

  • Early 13th century – Gerardo Patecchio uses antico.[2]
  • About 1274 – The Fiori di filosafi use the word.[5][8]
  • 1293–1294 – Dante uses it in the Vita nuova.[6]
  • Before 1348 – Anticaglia is recorded in Giovanni Villani.[6]
  • 1548 – English antic is recorded.[15]
  • 1955 – A learned antico “front, anterior” is recorded in architecture.[8][7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. ancient, very old, going back to a remote time: Il paese conserva un castello normanno molto antico.[8][16][14][1]
  2. (history) Of antiquity, the Mediterranean world before the fall of the Western Roman Empire: storia antica.[8][4][14]
  3. Of furniture or works of art, antique, made at least a hundred years ago: In salotto c'è un tavolo antico di noce.[8][14][4]
  4. Of the past; felt or experienced long ago: Con la pensione è tornato al suo antico amore per la pittura.[8][12][14]
  5. Long-standing, of old date: Fra le due famiglie c'è un'amicizia antica.[8][4][12]
  6. Typical of the past, often with approval: valori antichi.[8][14][17]
  7. (literary) Of a person, aged, old.[14][17][12]

Noun

  1. (in the plural) The ancients, the people of antiquity, (literary) ancestors.[8][4][17][1]
  2. (singular) What belongs to or is typical of antiquity or the past; the antique style.[8][14][4][1]

Word family

  • anticaglia
  • anticamente
  • anticheggiare
  • antichista
  • anticare
  • anticato
  • antichità
  • antiquario
  • antiquato
  • Latin antiquus
  • French antique

Usage notes

All'antica means “in the old way”, of habits and of old-fashioned people.[14][12][17] A rare learned antico, from Latin anticus “in front”, means “front, anterior” in architecture and archaeology (GRADIT dates it to 1955) and in anatomy, where Tommaseo stresses it àntico as opposed to pòstico.[8][7][3][1] The LEI suggests that the stress was drawn back by association with ante.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  4. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 1629
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 222
  10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  15. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  16. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  17. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  18. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 1608