calare

Forms

calare (first-person singular present càlo, first-person singular past historic calài, past participle calàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin calō (“to let down, lower”), also written chalō, from Ancient Greek χαλάω (khaláō, “to slacken, loosen”).^[2][3][4][1] The Greek verb entered Latin as a sailors' word for lowering the anchor or the sails.^[3][5] In Latin it is recorded only here and there, in Vitruvius, Vegetius and Isidore, and Vitruvius uses it of things let down to hang freely.^[6][7] DELI calls the origin of the Greek word unknown.^[2]

Meyer-Lübke and the LEI reckon with three regional Latin forms: the two above and an unrecorded *callō.^[8][6] The verb lives on in Italy and Gallo-Romance: Romansh chalar (“to decrease”) in the Engadine, Old French caler (“to lower the sails”) (about 1165), Old Occitan calar and Catalan calar.^[6][8] Nocentini derives the French verb from Occitan, and gives Spanish calar (“to soak, to lower the sails”) beside Spanish callar (“to fall silent”) and Portuguese calar (“to fall silent”).^[3] The sense “to be silent” is found only in southern Gallo-Romance and in Ibero-Romance.^[6]

Forms in ⟨f-⟩, such as Sardinian falar (“to go down”) in a 13th-century text from Cagliari, continue the spelling with ⟨ch-⟩, which was pronounced as a spirant.^[6][5] The noun calo is a back-formation from the verb.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Splanamento of Patecchio, a 13th-century poet from Cremona, in its first sense of moving or bringing something down, and of going down from a higher place.^[9] DELI dates the intransitive sense “to slope down, descend” to a Calabrian charter of Rossano of 1104, but marks the date as doubtful.^[2] The transitive sense “to let something down slowly” is in Dante (1304–1308), and the sense “to decrease” in Malispini in the 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the verb for birds swooping, for objects falling, for eyes cast down, for the setting of the sun and stars, for water that falls in level, and for the lowering of sails.^[9] The LEI groups the later senses under going down, striking a blow, decreasing in size or strength, stopping, and lacking; the last grew out of “decrease” and is mostly northern.^[6]

In modern Italian peoples from the north are said to calare into Italy, and the pasta is calata into boiling water.^[4] In knitting the verb means to reduce the number of stitches, a sense recorded from 1955.^[2][10] In card games one cala a card, playing it on the table.^[11][10] In young people's slang calare and calarsi mean to take a drug such as ecstasy by mouth.^[12][13]

Among the derivatives, calante “decreasing” is recorded from the early 14th century, calata “descent, invasion” from 1615 (Marino), and calapranzi, a small service lift between kitchen and dining room, from 1876.^[2]

Timeline

• 13th century – Patecchio's Splanamento has the verb.^[9]
• 13th century – The sense “to decrease” appears in Malispini.^[2]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses calare for letting something down slowly.^[2]
• Early 14th century – Calante “decreasing” is recorded.^[2]
• 1524 – Cagliare “to keep silent”, from Spanish, is recorded in Castiglione.^[6]
• 1615 – Calata “descent, invasion” appears in Marino.^[2]
• 1876 – Calapranzi enters the dictionaries.^[2]
• 1955 – The knitting sense “to decrease stitches” is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To lower or let down slowly, by hand or with a rope or other device: calarono il cesto dal balcone.^[12][10][14]
2. (transitive) To lower or pull down: calare la tapparella;^[12][10][4] calare le vele, to strike the sails.^[12][10][4]
3. (transitive) To put pasta into boiling water to cook.^[4][15]
4. (transitive, knitting) To decrease the number of stitches as the rows go on.^[10][11][16]
5. (transitive, card games) To play a card, laying it on the table.^[11][10]
6. (transitive, slang) To take a drug such as ecstasy by mouth; also calarsi.^[12][13]
7. (intransitive) To go down, descend, usually slowly or gradually: le pecore calano a valle.^[4]
8. (intransitive) Of peoples, especially from the north, to invade a land.^[4]
9. (intransitive) Of birds, to swoop down.^[4]
10. (intransitive) To slope down: il sentiero cala verso il fiume.^[4]
11. (intransitive) Of the sun and other heavenly bodies, to set; of the moon, to wane; of night, to fall.^[4][11][1]
12. (intransitive) To decrease in weight, size, strength or price: la temperatura è calata.^[4][11]
13. (intransitive) To lose weight.^[11][4]
14. (intransitive, music) To sing or play a note flat.^[4]

Word family

• calata
• calo
• calante
• calapranzi
• calarsi
• calatoia
• ricalare

Related words

• French caler
• Spanish callar

Usage notes

The verb takes avere when transitive and essere when intransitive.^[1] Fixed phrases include al calar del sole “at sunset”, calare il sipario and calare le brache, “to give in out of fear or cowardice”.^[4][10][16] Italian cagliare “to keep silent” (from 1524, Castiglione) is a borrowing of the Spanish verb, not a continuation of the Italian one.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 669
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 9, 797
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 514
14. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana