aprile

Forms

aprile m (uncountable)^[1] Early forms include Old Italian abrile, apirile, april and the northern avril and avrile.^[2][3] DEI takes Old Italian abrile from Occitan.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin aprīlis (“April”).^[5][6][3][1] The Latin word continues in every Romance language: French avril, Occitan abril, Catalan abril, Spanish abril, Portuguese abril, Sardinian abrile and Romanian prier.^[6][3][7] A variant Vulgar Latin *aprilius, probably remodelled in Latin after Martius, Iunius and Iulius, survives in Old French avrill, in Romansh and on the edges of northern Italy.^[3][8] REW considers that form secondary.^[7]

The origin of the Latin name is uncertain.^[5][9][10] April was the second month of the old Roman year, which began with March.^[11][6] Cuny took it as “the second month”, from an ordinal *aporo- (“second, following”), with the suffix of Quīntīlis and Sextīlis.^[6] De Vaan likewise connects it with ab, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epo (“away from, off”), as a “following” month, and takes the suffix -īlis to be analogical to those month names.^[11] Benveniste instead derived it, through an Etruscan intermediary, from Ancient Greek Ἀφρώ (Aphrṓ), a pet form of Ἀφροδίτη (Aphrodítē), making it Venus's month between Mars's March and Maia's May.^[6][1][12] DEI and Devoto follow the Etruscan explanation, and Nocentini prefers Cuny's.^[4][13][6] Varro already weighed Aphrodite against the verb aperīre (“to open”), “because spring opens everything”.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the northern Italian stanza of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras's multilingual Discordo, before 1202; the LEI dates the poem to about 1180.^[2][3] DELI's first record is in Guido Faba, 1239–1248.^[5] The sense has always been the month after March.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Thirteenth-century Tuscan documents spell it aprile, apirile and abrile, and the LEI records the standard aprile from Boccaccio's Decameron of 1353.^[3] Petrarch dates an event of 1327 to il dì sesto d’aprile (“the sixth day of April”).^[14]

Poets use aprile for youth: Leopardi's nel bello / april degli anni.^[15][16][17] Weather proverbs abound: aprile, dolce dormire;^[18][10] d’aprile non ti scoprire;^[18][10] d’aprile ogni goccia un barile, because April rain helps the vines.^[18][10] Tommaseo records marzo tinge, april dipinge (March brings the green, April the flowers).^[19] The pesce d’aprile is the April Fool's joke.^[15][20] Italian passed the word to Cimbrian and Somali.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1180 – Italian april in Raimbaut de Vaqueiras's Discordo.^[3]
• 1239–1248 – Guido Faba uses aprile.^[5][3]
• 1273 – Florentine apirile is recorded.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses aprile in the Decameron.^[15][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. April, the fourth month of the year, of thirty days: Ci sposiamo ad aprile.^[15][18][9]
2. (figurative, literary) youth;^[15][18][10] l’aprile degli anni, the springtime of life.^[15][18][10]

Word family

• aprilante
• aprilino

Related words

• aprico
• Latin Aprilis
• French avril

Usage notes

Stressed on the first syllable (/ˈa.pri.le/), aprile is also the imperative apri of aprire with the pronoun le.^[1] Aprile is also a surname.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 i j Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it
4. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 260
5. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
9. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
15. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
18. ^ 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
19. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
20. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli