avere

Forms

avere (first-person singular present (with syntactic gemination after the verb) hò, first-person singular past historic èbbi or ébbi, past participle avùto, first-person singular future avrò, first-person singular subjunctive àbbia, second-person singular imperative àbbi, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian had the present forms aggio, aio and abbo for ho, ave for ha and avemo for abbiamo.^[2][3][4] An early Florentine variant of the infinitive is Old Italian avire.^[5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin habeō (“to have, hold”).^[5][7][6][1] The verb is found in every Romance language: French avoir, Occitan aver, Catalan aver, Spanish haber, Portuguese haver, Sardinian àere, Romanian avea and Dalmatian avar.^[7][8]

The Latin verb has its closest relatives in Italic and Celtic, such as the Umbrian imperative habetu (“let him hold”) and Old Irish gaibid (“takes”).^[9][7] Nocentini notes that Irish keeps the older sense “take”, and that the general sense “have” is the result of the bleaching of more specific senses such as “take, hold, keep”.^[7] The root is reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to grab, take”),^[1][9] but de Vaan points out that the Italic and Celtic forms with “-b-” are hard to reconcile with it, and that a loanword from outside Indo-European is also possible.^[9][1] Despite the likeness in form and meaning, it is not related to English have, which corresponds to Latin capiō (“to take”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in an Umbrian confession formula from Norcia dated 1065.^[10][7] A Florentine text of 1211 has the form avire,^[5][6] and early in the 13th century the Sicilian poet Rinaldo d'Aquino uses avere for “to possess, to hold”.^[5] The noun, meaning “property, wealth”, is recorded in 1219 in the Breve di Montieri.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb already expressed every kind of possession: goods, bodily features, moral and intellectual qualities, an office or a power, relatives and dependants, and a person's age; it also meant “to get hold of”, as in winning a battle, capturing an enemy or conquering a town.^[10] An intransitive use meaning “there is, there are”, recorded in the 13th century (Malispini), survived only in Tuscan and literary usage.^[5][1] As an auxiliary it forms the compound tenses of transitive verbs and of many intransitive ones (ho visto, ho dormito).^[3][1]

The noun was common in early prose and verse for a person's wealth: Brunetto Latini describes a man “molto ricco d'avere” (very rich in possessions), and Dante's tyrants in Inferno 12 are those “che dier nel sangue e nell'aver di piglio” (who laid hands on blood and property).^[11] In bookkeeping avere came to mean the credit side of an account, opposed to dare, from 1583;^[12] German Haben in this sense is a semantic calque of the Italian word.^[12]

In colloquial Italian the verb is often joined with an unstressed ci (ci ho, “I've got”), a use already found in Firenzuola: «O che faccenda ci ho io adesso…?» (“What business have I got now…?”).^[2]

Timeline

• 1065 – The verb appears in an Umbrian confession formula from Norcia.^[10][7]
• 1211 – The Florentine form avire is recorded.^[5][6]
• 1219 – The noun avere “property” appears in the Breve di Montieri.^[5][6]
• Early 13th century – Rinaldo d'Aquino uses avere for “to possess, hold”.^[5]
• 13th century – The intransitive sense “there is” is recorded in Malispini.^[5]
• 1583 – Avere is recorded in the accounting sense “credit”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To own, possess material goods: avere due appartamenti in città.^[6][13][2]
2. (absolute) To be wealthy.^[6][13]
3. To have a physical, moral or intellectual quality: ha i capelli ricci e un carattere mite.^[6][13][14]
4. To feel a sensation or emotion: ho sonno, aveva fame.^[13][3]
5. To be a given age: mia nonna ha novant'anni.^[6][3]
6. To have on, wear: oggi ha la giacca blu.^[2]
7. To get, receive: ha avuto un premio per il suo romanzo.^[2]
8. (auxiliary) Forms the compound tenses of transitive verbs and of many intransitive ones: ho letto il giornale.^[6][3][1]
9. (impersonal, obsolete, literary or Tuscan) There to be.^[1][5]

Noun

1. (usually in the plural) property, belongings, wealth: ha lasciato tutti i suoi averi ai nipoti.^[6][13][2]
2. A sum owed to one, a credit: il dare e l'avere, debts and credits, and figuratively the give and take of a relationship.^[6][13][14]
3. (accounting) The credit side of an account.^[6][13]

Word family

• riavere
• avercela
• avente

Related words

• Latin habeō
• French avoir
• Spanish haber

Usage notes

The forms ho, hai, ha and hanno are written with an h that is not pronounced; the older spellings ò, ài, à and ànno are now very rare.^[14][4] The present forms ho and ha cause the doubling of the consonant that follows (raddoppiamento sintattico).^[14][1]

Fixed expressions include the proverb chi più ha più vuole (the more one has, the more one wants)^[3] and e chi più ne ha più ne metta, “and so on”, at the end of a list.^[6][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
3. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 g h i j k l m n o De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b c 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 d e f g 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 c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana