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arrestare

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Etymology and origin of the Italian word arrestare

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
13th century, Bestiario moralizzato
Inherited from
Latin *arresto
Ultimate origin
Latin restō
From the same root
Italian arresto ← arrestare

Pronunciation

  • /ar.resˈta.re/[1]

Forms

arrestare (first-person singular present arrèsto, first-person singular past historic arrestài, past participle arrestàto, auxiliary avére)[1] The spelling Old Italian arestare is also found.[2][3] Dialect forms include Ligurian arrestâ, Piedmontese arestè, Neapolitan arrestare and Sicilian arristari.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *arrestāre (“to stop”), formed on Latin restō (“to stay behind, stop”) with the reinforcing prefix ad-.[3][5][6][1] The LEI holds that the verb must belong to Late Latin, because it is continued in Gallo-Romance, Ibero-Romance and Italo-Romance;[4][3] Medieval Latin has adrestāre, and Wiktionary dates the Latin form to 1194, by then a borrowing from Romance.[7][8][1] The same verb is French arrêter, Occitan arestar, Catalan arestar, Spanish arrestar and Portuguese arrestar.[5][9][10] Old French had the reflexive soi arester “to stop” from the 12th century, and the Spanish verb is recorded in 1400.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the 13th-century Bestiario moralizzato, from the area of Arezzo and Città di Castello, with the sense “to stop a movement”.[3][2][5] The legal sense, to hold a person for the courts, appears as arestare in a Florentine document of 1311–1313 and as arrestare in Giovanni Villani (before 1348).[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for stopping someone or something, and reflexively for lingering or pausing; it also meant to stop doing something, to hinder, to put under arrest, and to confiscate goods.[2] The sense “to seize, confiscate” is recorded from Villani to the 16th century and again in 1863, and is now obsolete.[4][8] Boccaccio has arrestato “stopped” (before 1375), and the participle meaning “imprisoned” appears in the minutes of the provisional Municipality of Venice in 1797.[3]

The noun arresto is recorded in Villani for the act of stopping; it named a mechanical stop in 1853 and a prison sentence in 1699.[3] A plant whose roots hold back the oxen at the plough is called arrestabue, like French arrête-bœuf.[9][4] In computing arrestare now means to shut down a computer.[6]

Timeline

  • 13th century – The Bestiario moralizzato uses arrestare “to stop”.[3][2]
  • 1311–1313 – A Florentine document has arestare “to arrest”.[3]
  • Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses arrestare for arresting a person and for confiscating goods, and has the noun arresto.[3][4]
  • Before 1375 – Boccaccio has arrestato “stopped”.[3]
  • Before 1431 – A second verb arrestare, “to put the lance in rest”, is recorded.[7][8]
  • 1699 – Arresto is used for detention as a penalty.[3]
  • 1797 – Arrestato “imprisoned” appears in Venetian records.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To stop, to halt a movement or a process, also figuratively: Il medico riuscì ad arrestare l'emorragia.[7][6][11]
  2. To arrest, to take a person into custody: La polizia ha arrestato due sospettati.[7][6][11]
  3. (sport) Arrestare il gioco: of the referee, to stop play for a foul.[7][8]
  4. (computing) To shut down a computer.[6]
  5. (obsolete) To confiscate goods.[8][4]
  6. Arrestarsi: to come to a stop, to halt: L'ascensore si arrestò tra due piani.[6][11][12]

Word family

  • arresto
  • arrestato
  • arrestamento
  • arrestatoio
  • arrestabile

Usage notes

An obsolete homograph arrestare, “to put the lance in rest”, was formed from resta, the rest for a lance on a breastplate (before 1431).[7][8][13] Ariosto and Tasso use it, and the LEI treats it as a separate family.[13][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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 k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  4. ^ 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. 3, 1372
  5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  13. ^ 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, 685

Derived terms

Related etymologies

  • no · also from Latin
  • cosa · also from Latin
  • a · also from Latin
  • mio · also from Latin
  • uno · also from Latin
  • si · also from Latin
  • sapere · also from Latin
  • fare · also from Latin
Cite this entry

“Arrestare.” Etymologically, 22 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/it/arrestare. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·