cadauno

Forms

cadauno (feminine cadauna, masculine plural cadauni, feminine plural cadaune)^[1] Old forms are Old Italian catuno, Old Italian catauno, Old Italian caduno and Old Italian cadaun at Venice.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cata ūnum (“each one”), formed from the preposition cata, used in a distributive sense, and ūnus (“one”).^[3][5][4][1] Latin cata is from Ancient Greek κατά (katá, “down; by, per”), and Egeria's travel diary has semper cata pascha (“every Easter”).^[6][2] The Latin phrase is first recorded in Cassius Felix, before 447, and is a hybrid calque of Ancient Greek καθ' ἕνα (kath' héna).^[4] unum cata unum is recorded from about 600.^[2] DELI also reports Orioles's suggestion that it comes straight from καθεῖς (katheîs, “each one”), which would make it a partial calque.^[2]

The modern form with ⟨-da-⟩ came from the north, where it is common in the 14th and 15th centuries, into Tuscan.^[4][7] Tuscany had catuno and catauno.^[4][2] Treccani, Sabatini–Coletti and Devoto's Avviamento take cadauno instead from Spanish cadauno, and Wiktionary allows for that route.^{[8][9][10][1]} The same Latin phrase gave Old French chaün (modern French chacun), Occitan cadaun, Catalan cada un, Spanish cada uno and Portuguese cada um.^[3][4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Zingarelli date the word to 1211, in the old form katuno.^[5][12] DELI's first record is catauno in the Breve di Montieri of 1219, with the sense “each one”: the statute allows catauno to form a trading company.^[2][13]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian catuno and its variants were ordinary words for “each”, as adjective and pronoun: Bono Giamboni writes of catuno mese, every month, and the Novellino has caduna for each of the ladies at a banquet.^[13] Northern texts used cadauno from 1326 at Modena, 1360–62 at Venice and 1371 at Mantua.^[4]

By the 19th century Tommaseo found ciascuno the commoner word, and the modern dictionaries call cadauno old-fashioned.^[14][8] It survives in commercial language, after a price or a quantity, where it is written cad..^[5][15]

Timeline

• Before 447 – Cassius Felix uses Latin cata una.^[4]
• 1211 – The old form katuno is recorded.^[5]
• 1219 – Catauno appears in the Breve di Montieri.^[2][4]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses catuno.^[2]
• 1326 – Chadauno is recorded at Modena.^[4]
• 1499 – Francesco Colonna uses cadauno.^[4]

Meanings

Determiner

1. (literary, dated) each, every: il primo giorno di cadaun mese.^[12][8][9]

Pronoun

1. each one, apiece, mainly in commercial language after a price or quantity: penne a due euro cadauna.^{[5][15][12][16]}

Related words

• ciascuno
• uno
• Latin cata
• French chacun

Usage notes

It is used only in the singular, and agrees with the noun it refers to (cadauna for a feminine noun).^[5][12][8] The abbreviation cad. is common in price lists.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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. 12, 1443
5. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 12, 1380
7. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 657
8. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli