caldura

Forms

caldura f (plural caldure)^[1] Old Italian has callura at L’Aquila about 1362.^[2][3] The word lives on in the northern dialects: Venetian caldùra (also Milanese), Piedmontese caudura and Genoese cädûa.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *caldūra (“great heat”), a noun not found in Latin texts but continued in several Romance languages, from Latin caldus (“warm”).^[3][4][5][1] GRADIT, Devoto–Oli, Sabatini–Coletti and the Treccani instead treat it as formed from Italian caldo + -ura.^[6][7][8][9] Devoto saw in it a cross of caldo and calura.^[10]

The same Latin noun is continued by Romanian căldură, Friulian cialdùre and Sardinian kardura, and by caldira in the Romansh of the Surselva.^[3][5][4] Wartburg's FEW regards the French dialect form chaudure as a later new formation.^[3]

The adjective is a syncopated form of calidus (“warm, hot”), which is formed from caleō (“to be warm”) with the suffix -idus.^[11][1] De Vaan traces the verb through Proto-Italic *kalē- to Proto-Indo-European *ḱlh₁-eh₁- (“to be hot”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Devoto–Oli date the word before 1320.^[6][7] Among the dated texts, Cavalca used it at Pisa before 1342, and the Venetian-Tuscan Fiorio e Biancifiore of 1343 is the TLIO's first record, with the sense “intense heat”.^[3][2] DELI's first record is the Italian translation of Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, about 1350, which asks for a spring or stream in the garden so that all of it can be watered “in the season of the great heat” (nel tempo della gran caldura).^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named the sultry heat of summer, and by extension the summer season itself.^[14][2] Tommaseo noted that it was said only of the season, never of the heat a person feels or of heat produced artificially.^[15] A Tuscan proverb pairs it with freddura: Sant'Antonio gran freddura, San Lorenzo gran caldura, l'uno e l'altro poco dura, “great cold at St Anthony's (17 January), great heat at St Lawrence's (10 August): neither lasts long”, and the LEI records Ligurian versions of the same saying.^[15][3]

Belcari used it before 1484, and Manzoni brought it back into the literary language from 1823.^[3] In the 1827 edition of his novel he wrote una caldura anticipata e violenta, “an early and violent heat”, where the final text has un caldo.^[14] Nievo and Campana also used it.^[14][16] Today the dictionaries mark it as literary, rare or obsolete,^[8][16][6] while dialects of the north and centre, from Liguria and Piedmont to Venice, the Marche and the Abruzzi, keep it.^[3]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – GRADIT's date for the first record.^[6][7]
• Before 1342 – Cavalca uses caldura at Pisa.^[3]
• 1343 – Fiorio e Biancifiore, the TLIO's first record.^[2]
• About 1350 – The Italian translation of Crescenzi speaks of la gran caldura.^[13][14]
• About 1362 – The Aquilan form callura appears in Buccio di Ranallo.^[3][2]
• Before 1484 – Belcari uses the word.^[3][15]
• 1827 – Manzoni writes una caldura anticipata e violenta in the first edition of his novel.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary, rare) Intense, sultry and oppressive summer heat: Nella caldura del primo pomeriggio il paese pareva deserto.^{[6][7][16][9][8]}
2. (obsolete) The summer season.^[6][14]

Related words

• caldo
• calura
• calore
• Latin caldus
• Romanian căldură

Usage notes

Synonyms are calura and canicola.^[16][17]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 9, 1331
4. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 678
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d e f g Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 2, 539
15. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli