Etymologically
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brutto

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Pronunciation

Forms

brutto (feminine brutta, masculine plural brutti, feminine plural brutte, superlative bruttissimo, adverb bruttamente, diminutive bruttìno or bruttarèllo or (rare) brutterèllo, augmentative bruttóne, pejorative (often jocular) bruttàccio, diminutive-derogatory bruttacchiòlo)[1] Old forms include Old Italian bructu, Old Italian bructo, Old Italian bruto and Old Italian brut.[2]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *brūttus, a form of Latin brūtus (“heavy; dull, brutish”) with an expressively doubled consonant, as the LEI and GRADIT hold.[3][4] DELI calls the derivation from the Latin adjective generally agreed though not fully convincing, and explains the /tt/ as the Tuscan adaptation of a northern word;[5][6][7] Sabatini–Coletti and Devoto agree.[5][6][7] DEI and Meyer-Lübke treat it as a learned borrowing, which appears late everywhere, and Meyer-Lübke rejects the form with /tt/;[8][9] DEI notes that the original sense, still alive in the north and in Occitan and Catalan, seems to have been “dirty”.[8][9] The word is also Romansh brüt, French brut, Occitan brut, Catalan brut and Spanish bruto.[9]

Other views: Nocentini rejects the Latin source on grounds of sense and form, and makes the adjective a short past participle of bruttare (“to soil”), a variant of brattare from bratta (“mud, dregs”), with the same change of the pretonic vowel as in annusare beside naso;[10][11] Devoto–Oli follow him.[10][11] Merlo proposed a pre-Roman source and Regula a Latin *brūtidus, while Muratori and Zaccaria compared Old High German bruttisc (“grim, terrible”).[5][12]

The Latin adjective is probably a word of Oscan origin, with Sabellic /b/ for an older /ɡʷ/: de Vaan derives it from Proto-Indo-European *gʷrh₂-u-to- (“heavy”), the stem of gravis (“heavy”), and compares Latvian grūts (“heavy”).[13][14][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the late 12th century.[2] DELI cites bructu in the 13th-century Giostra delle virtù e dei vizi and brutto in Ristoro d'Arezzo (1282), with the sense “unpleasant to look at”.[5] Already in the 13th century bruto meant “stained” (1242–1243), and Medieval Latin bruttum and bruttura meant filth at Parma in 1255.[5][8]

Semantic evolution

Guittone d'Arezzo played on the whole family before 1294: “Oh, che pur brutti vizi esto bruttasse” (oh, if only this would sully foul vices).[5] Dante uses brutto for “morally foul” and also for “dirty”: “ma tu chi se', che sì se' fatto brutto?” (but who are you, who have become so filthy?).[5][4] The 15th-century Portolani use it for “dangerous” of a coast.[5] The noun il brutto “ugliness” follows in Berni (before 1535), un brutto “an ugly person” in Leopardi (1821), and fa brutto “the weather is bad” in Moravia (1954).[5]

Brutto male was a euphemism first for epilepsy and later for cancer (1535), and brutta copia “rough draft” dates from 1744.[10] In trade brutto meant “gross” of weight, and in that sense the word was borrowed as the adverb German brutto (“gross”).[10] The adverbial di brutto “suddenly; hard” may adapt Latin ex abrupto under the influence of brutto.[5][15]

Timeline

  • Late 12th century – The adjective appears in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.[2]
  • 1242–1243 – Bruto “stained” is recorded.[5]
  • 1282 – Ristoro d'Arezzo uses brutto.[5]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses the word for “morally foul”.[5]
  • Before 1535 – Berni uses il brutto “ugliness”, and brutto male is recorded.[5][10]
  • 1744 – Brutta copia “rough draft” is recorded.[10]
  • 1821 – Leopardi uses brutto for an ugly person.[5]
  • 1954 – Moravia uses il brutto for bad weather.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. ugly, unpleasant to see or hear: un brutto edificio, brutto come il peccato, as ugly as sin.[4][11][6][1]
  2. Bad, morally wrong: una brutta abitudine, brutte parole, swear words.[4][6]
  3. Unpleasant, painful: una brutta sorpresa, fare una brutta figura, to make a poor impression.[4][6][16]
  4. Unfavourable, ominous: un brutto segno.[4][16]
  5. Serious, dangerous: una brutta caduta, brutto male, a euphemism for cancer.[4][16]
  6. Of weather, bad, rainy; of the sea, rough.[4][16][15]
  7. Used as an intensifier in insults: Brutto vigliacco![4][6]
  8. (archaic) dirty, filthy.[4][6][2]
  9. (archaic) Gross, of weight.[4][10]

Noun

  1. An ugly person.[6][5][1]
  2. il brutto: what is ugly or unpleasant; bad weather: Dopo tre giorni di brutto è tornato il sole.[6][5]

Word family

  • bruttezza
  • bruttura
  • bruttare
  • imbruttire
  • bruttamente
  • brutta
  • bruto
  • brutale
  • bratta
  • Latin brutus

Usage notes

Vedersela brutta means “to have a narrow escape”, alle brutte “if the worst comes to the worst”, and di brutto “suddenly” or “with a vengeance”.[16][15] La brutta is short for brutta copia, a rough draft.[17][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 7, 1031
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 619
  9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
  13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  14. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  16. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana