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attraverso

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Etymology and origin of the Italian word attraverso

Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
late 13th century, Novellino
Ultimate origin
Latin ad,trānsversus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin ad
Italian a
Italian attraverso
Derived words
Italian abbastanza ← a
Italian accanto ← a
Italian addosso ← a
Italian affare ← a
Italian affatto ← a
Italian appena ← a
Italian arrivederci ← a

Pronunciation

  • /at.traˈvɛr.so/[1]

Forms

attraverso (invariable); also written separately, a traverso.[2][3] Old Italian also wrote atraverso and a traversso.[4]

Etymology

It is from Italian a + traverso (“crosswise”), the phrase ⟨a traverso⟩ written as one word, with the doubled consonant that the preposition causes in pronunciation.[5][6][3][1] Traverso continues Latin trānsversus (“lying across, oblique”), formed trāns- (“across”) and versus (“turned”), and also used as the perfect passive participle of trānsvertō (“to turn across”).[7][1][8] Wiktionary gives a Proto-Italic *trānsworssos, and compares the Umbrian adverb trahuorfi (“crosswise”).[1] The other Romance languages made similar phrases from the same adjective: French à travers, Portuguese através and Spanish a través de.[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates a traverso, “from one side to the other”, to the Novellino at the end of the 13th century, and Nocentini puts the first record in the 1270s.[5][6] The TLIO's first example is in the Milanese poems of Bonvesin da la Riva, where it is an adverb meaning “crosswise”.[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was mostly an adverb: “crosswise”, “obliquely”, in heraldry “diagonally”, and figuratively “the wrong way”, as in andare a traverso; as a preposition it meant “across, from one side to the other of”, also as attraverso a or attraverso di.[4] Tommaseo records dare attraverso, said of a ship, “to be wrecked”, and rispondere a traverso, “to answer rudely”.[9]

Today the adverb is literary, and the word is chiefly a preposition: of movement through a place (attraverso i campi), of looking or passing through an opening, of time (attraverso i secoli), and of means (attraverso lunghe indagini).[2][10][11] The verb attraversare is as old as Dante; its figurative use for going through hard times was noted as modern by Rigutini in 1886.[5]

Timeline

  • 1270s – First record, according to Nocentini.[6]
  • Late 13th century – A traverso “from one side to the other” appears in the Novellino.[5]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses the verb attraversare.[5]
  • 1886 – Rigutini notes the figurative attraversare un brutto periodo as a modern usage.[5]

Meanings

Preposition

  1. through, across: from one side to the other of a place or object: Il gatto è entrato attraverso la finestra.[10][2][12]
  2. In the midst of, among; figuratively, through a series of events: è passato attraverso molte difficoltà.[2][11]
  3. Over the course of a period of time: La ricetta si è tramandata attraverso le generazioni.[2]
  4. By means of: L'ho saputo attraverso un amico.[10][2][12]
  5. Across, lying crosswise over: Un albero era caduto attraverso il sentiero.[12][11]

Adverb

  1. (literary) crosswise, obliquely; more often written a traverso.[2][11][3]

Word family

  • attraversare
  • attraversamento

Usage notes

The preposition can also take a: attraverso al bosco.[10][11][13] The adverb is now usually written separately, and in andare di traverso (of food, to go down the wrong way) di traverso is used instead.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  3. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  4. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  5. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  10. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  11. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
Cite this entry

“Attraverso.” Etymologically, 21 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/it/attraverso. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.

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