benefare

Forms

benefare (first-person singular present benefàccio, first-person singular past historic beneféci, past participle benefàtto, first-person singular imperfect benefacévo, second-person singular imperative benefài or benefà', auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin benefacere (“to do good”), formed from bene (“well”) and faciō (“to do”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The LEI takes the lack of syncope in the Italian form as a sign of learned and bookish origin, especially in the humanist and Renaissance period.^[3] GRADIT and Wiktionary instead analyse it as from Italian bene + fare.^[7][1]

The Latin verb also lives on in Old French bienfere (1260, Brunetto Latini), Catalan benfer and Portuguese bem-fazer (14th century).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the verb to before 1340, in the sense “to do good”.^[7] The LEI's oldest record is the infinitive used as a noun, “virtuous conduct”, in Donato Acciaiuoli in the second half of the 14th century.^[3] DEI gives the 14th century for the sense “to benefit”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the verb meant “to act rightly”: Jacopo Pitti, who died in 1598, used it intransitively of living virtuously.^[2][3][4] With an object, “to act well towards someone”, it appears in Neapolitan in 1493 and in Tommaso Campanella, who wrote of the wise benefacendo alla repubblica “doing good to the commonwealth”.^[3][5][4]

Tommaseo already marked the word as obsolete and sent the reader to benfare.^[8] Of its participles, benefatta “well formed in body” is recorded in 1444, and benefacente “beneficial” from the first half of the 14th century to the 20th.^[3] In the Salento, bbenefare still means “good deeds”.^[3]

Timeline

• Before 1340 – First record of the verb.^[7]
• Second half of the 14th century – Donato Acciaiuoli uses benefare as a noun, “virtuous conduct”.^[3]
• 1444 – The participle benefatta “well formed” is recorded.^[3]
• 1493 – A Neapolitan text uses benefare with an object.^[3]
• Before 1598 – Jacopo Pitti uses the verb for living virtuously.^[3][4]
• Before 1639 – Tommaso Campanella uses it with an object.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To do good, to act rightly or virtuously.^[7][4][1]
2. (obsolete) To benefit someone, to do good to someone.^[6][2][5]

Word family

• benefacente

Related words

• benfare
• beneficare
• benefattore
• Latin benefaciō

Usage notes

The usual Old Italian verb was benfare or ben fare, recorded from the early 13th century.^[9][8] Benefare is conjugated like fare (benefaccio, benefeci, benefatto) and takes avere.^[1][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 485
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 5, 1138
4. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2
5. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it