assalire

Forms

assalire (first-person singular present assàlgo or (less common) assalìsco, first-person singular past historic assalìi, past participle assalìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian forms include asalire and adsalire; in the north Milanese had asalir and Paduan arsalire.^[2][3] The old variant Old Italian assaglire has the palatal sound of the Gallo-Romance forms.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *assalīre (“to leap upon”), a remaking of Latin assilīre after the simple verb saliō (“to jump, leap”), with the prefix ad- (“to, towards”).^[5][6][7] The Vulgar Latin form is attested in the Lex Salica and the Tironian notes.^[3][8] Italian salire continues the same simple verb.^[6] Leopardi already argued that the Italian and the French verbs pointed to a spoken Latin verb missing from the writers.^[4]

The same verb is Old French asalir (10th century) and asaillir (c. 1080), Old Occitan assalhir, Catalan assalir, Spanish asalir and Romansh assaglir.^[3] The modern form is French assaillir.^[6][9] Old Italian, northern and Old Sicilian forms with a palatal /ʎ/ before the stressed /i/ of the ending show Gallo-Romance influence.^[3]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *salje- (“to jump”) for the simple verb, from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂l-i̯e/o-, with Ancient Greek ἅλλομαι (hállomai, “to jump”) as a cognate, but considers the form of the root uncertain.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Tuscan poet Tomaso di Sasso, in the first half of the 13th century.^[2] DELI's first record is in Guinizelli before 1276, with the sense “to charge with force, to attack violently”.^[5] Panuccio del Bagno, before 1276, has asalire “to fight” with fortune as object.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb meant to attack someone with hostile intent, in battle or from ambush, and also to besiege a town or storm houses and ships.^[2] It could also mean to address someone with harsh words, to overwhelm (of feelings), and to tempt (of worldly desires); of animals it meant to mount in mating, and it could also mean to mount a horse.^[2] Giamboni used it before 1292 for the assault on a city or a fortified camp,^[3] and Pulci in 1483 for animals attacking.^[3]

The agent noun assalitore is recorded from the early 14th century.^[5] In modern Italian the verb is common of illnesses and of feelings that seize a person suddenly.^[7][11] Piedmontese and Sicilian formed nouns and verbs of fear from it, such as Piedmontese arsai (“fear”).^[9][3] German calqued the military verb as ansprengen in 1557.^[12]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – Tomaso di Sasso uses assalire.^[2]
• Before 1276 – Guinizelli uses assalire “to attack violently”.^[5]
• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses it for assaulting a city.^[3]
• Early 14th century – Assalitore appears in the Intelligenza.^[5]
• 1483 – Pulci uses it of animals attacking.^[3]
• 1557 – German ansprengen is recorded as a calque.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To attack violently, assail; also figuratively, to besiege with words: la folla lo assalì di richieste.^{[7][13][11][14]}
2. (transitive) Of an illness, to strike suddenly: un forte raffreddore l'aveva assalita.^[7][11][14]
3. (transitive) Of a feeling or thought, to seize, overcome: lo assalì un dubbio.^[7][13][15]

Word family

• assalitore
• riassalire
• assalimento

Related words

• salire
• assalto
• French assaillir
• Latin saliō

Usage notes

The present is assalgo, assali … or, less commonly, assalisco, assalisci …; the past historic is assalii, and the older assalsi is rare.^[13][15][4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 1764
4. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 327
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
13. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli