cagione

Forms

cagione f (plural cagioni)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian cascione, Old Italian casgione, Old Italian caione, Old Italian cason and Old Italian caçon.^[2] Older variants are Old Italian accagione and Old Italian occagione.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin occāsiō (“occasion”), through the accusative occasiōnem, with the loss of the unstressed first vowel; it is the popular form beside the learned doublet occasione.^[4][5][1][6] The Latin word meant “favourable circumstance” and then “cause”.^[7] It is formed from occidō (“to fall”) with the suffix -tiō.^[8][1][9]

DEI and the GDLI start from Vulgar Latin *accāsiō for the classical form;^[3][10] DEI sees the Italian word as cut from Old Italian accagione, and the word as northern Italian and western Romance, while Romanian has only the verb.^[3][10] The same word is Old French ochaison and Occitan acaizó, and Sicilian scaciuni is the Sicilian form.^[7][11][1]

The /dʒ/ from Latin /sj/ is explained in more than one way.^[12][9] Devoto sees a northern treatment of the group, against Tuscan /ʃ/.^[12] Prati rejects a Gallo-Romance origin, as proposed by Meyer-Lübke and Bartoli, because /dʒ/ from Latin /sj/ is native in Tuscan too, as in ciliegia, prigione and tregenda.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, of the last quarter of the 12th century, and its first sense is “favourable circumstance”, close to the Latin.^[2] DELI's first dated sense, “the cause that determines something”, is in Pannuccio del Bagno, before 1276, who writes of a cagion dogliosa e fera di dolere (“a painful and cruel cause of grief”).^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian cagione covered a wide field: a cause or motive, the phrase per cagione di “because of”, the first cause of things in philosophy, and the cause of a disease; and on the other side guilt, an accusation, a false pretext or excuse, and the argument of a party in a dispute.^[2] The old sense “illness” (14th century) gave cagionevole, “sickly”, used by Boccaccio in 1353; the modern di salute cagionevole is recorded from 1927.^[3][4][7] The verb cagionare first meant “to accuse” in a poem of the Sicilian School of the 13th century, and “to cause” in Dante.^[4]

Dante writes Non è sanza cagion l'andare al cupo (“Not without cause is the going to the depths”).^[13] Tommaseo notes that its sense lay now near causa, now near occasione, now near ragione.^[14] Today the word is Tuscan or literary, and is used more and more rarely, mostly of things that bring pain or harm.^[15][13]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur have the word.^[2]
• Before 1276 – Pannuccio del Bagno uses cagione for “cause”.^[4]
• 13th century – Cagionare “to accuse” appears in a poem of the Sicilian School.^[4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses cagionare “to cause”.^[4]
• 1353 – Boccaccio has cagionevole della persona “sickly”.^[4]
• 1927 – Di salute cagionevole is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) A cause, reason or motive, especially of something bad: Il freddo fu cagione della sua malattia.^[6][16][15]
2. a cagione di, per cagione di: because of, on account of.^[16][17]
3. (literary) A pretext or excuse.^[6][16]
4. (archaic) Guilt, blame.^[6][16][1]
5. (archaic) An illness.^[16][5]

Word family

• cagionare
• cagionevole
• scagionare
• accagionare

Related words

• occasione
• Latin occāsiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 661
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 202
10. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana