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ascolto

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Pronunciation

  • /asˈkol.to/[1]

Forms

ascolto m (plural ascolti)[1]

Etymology

It is from Italian ascoltare (“to listen”), a noun made from the stem of the verb without a suffix.[2][3][4] The verb is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ascultāre, a form recorded from the 2nd century AD for classical Latin auscultō (“to listen”), with the first ⟨u⟩ lost by dissimilation.[2][5][1] The same Latin verb gave French écouter, Occitan escoutar, Catalan escoltar, Spanish escuchar, Portuguese escutar and Romanian asculta.[5]

Beside the noun, Italian also had an old adjective of the same spelling meaning “heard, dismissed”, which the GDLI explains as a shortened form of the past participle of the verb.[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Jacopo della Lana's Bolognese commentary on Dante's Inferno (1324–1328), in the sense “the act of listening” and in the phrase stare in ascolto “to be listening”.[8] DELI dates the noun to before 1400, in Franco Sacchetti's tales, and Zingarelli to 1328.[2][9]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word lived mostly in phrases.[6][7] Stare or mettersi in ascolto meant to stop and listen, as in Sacchetti's tale of a woman who “had been listening” behind a door (essendo stata in ascolto).[6] Dare ascolto “to give a hearing” came to mean to take advice or to obey.[6][7]

In the 20th century radio and then television gave the word technical senses: ascolto radiotelegrafico, the watch kept by radio stations at sea, and the audience of a programme, measured by the indice di ascolto and the fascia d'ascolto, the time band with most listeners or viewers.[6][3][10]

Timeline

  • 1324–1328 – Jacopo della Lana uses ascolto in his commentary on Dante.[8]
  • Before 1400 – Franco Sacchetti writes stare in ascolto in his tales.[2][6]
  • 1861 – Tommaseo and Bellini record dare ascolto as “to take someone's advice”.[7]
  • 20th century – The word gains the sense “audience” of radio and television.[3][10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act of listening; also the quality of the reception of a sound or broadcast: Stasera l'ascolto della radio è pessimo.[3][10][9]
  2. Attention paid to what someone says, in dare, prestare or porgere ascolto “to listen to, to take notice of”: Non ha dato ascolto ai miei consigli.[3][10][11]
  3. (television, radio) The audience of a programme: una trasmissione di grande ascolto.[3][10]

Usage notes

Essere, stare or mettersi in ascolto means to listen out, to stand listening.[9][11] The indice di ascolto is the share of listeners or viewers a programme has, and a gruppo d'ascolto a panel of viewers whose opinions are used to rate programmes.[9][10]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  4. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 1, 727
  7. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  9. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  10. ^ 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
  11. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana