Etymologically
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cattivo

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Pronunciation

  • /katˈti.vo/[1]

Forms

cattivo (feminine cattiva, masculine plural cattivi, feminine plural cattive, superlative cattivissimo, adverb cattivamente, diminutive cattivetto, endearing cattivuccio, diminutive-endearing cattivello)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin captīvus (“captive, prisoner”), from captus (“taken”), the past participle of capiō (“to take”).[2][3][4][5] The sense “wicked” comes from the phrase Ecclesiastical Latin captīvus diabolī (“prisoner of the devil”) of Christian writers, in which the adjective came to stand for the whole.[2][3][4][6][7] Meyer-Lübke also saw a Christian view in it, the captive of the devil or of evil.[8]

The word survives in the whole Romance area except Romanian.[9] Spanish cautivo and Portuguese cautivo kept the sense “captive”, while French chétif and Old Occitan caitiu moved, like the Italian word, towards “wretched” and “bad”.[3][8][10] For the French and Occitan forms the LEI considers a variant Vulgar Latin *cactīvus, with -ct- for -pt-, whereas Italian shows the assimilation of -pt- to -tt-.[9] The learned captivo is its doublet.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record of the adjective is in the Splanamento of Gerardo Patecchio of Cremona (13th century), and of the noun in a Sienese letter of 1260.[12] DELI finds hom cativo in Salimbene's chronicle (1281–1288) and dates the sense “contrary to the moral law” to Dino Compagni (1310–1312), who calls an envoy “uomo disleale e cattivo, quantunque in apparenza paresse buono e benigno” (a disloyal and wicked man, though he seemed good and kind).[2][13]

Semantic evolution

In early Italian the word still often meant “captive”, as in Dante's “Ecuba trista, misera e cattiva” (Hecuba, sad, wretched and captive).[14] Antonino Pagliaro, quoted by DELI, argued that in Dante it means “wretched, defenceless against sin”, after Augustine's teaching that man is a prisoner of the devil until grace frees him.[2] The TLIO also records the senses “cowardly”, “unhappy” and “poor”, and DELI records its use for things unfit for their purpose from the 14th century.[12][2]

Cattivo took over many uses of Latin malus, which survives in phrases such as maltempo beside cattivo tempo.[13] Southern Italy kept the Latin word for “bad” and gave cattivo another sense, “widowed”.[10] Middle French cattif “bad” (16th century) was borrowed from Italian.[10] The noun cattiveria appears in Bonvesin da la Riva (before 1315) as cativeria; the old stress cattiverìa was the only one D'Alberti recorded in 1797, but by 1942 Migliorini found that cattivèria had won.[2]

Timeline

  • 1260 – A Sienese letter has cattivo as a noun.[12]
  • 1281–1288 – Salimbene's chronicle has hom cativo.[2]
  • Before 1315 – Bonvesin da la Riva uses cativeria.[2]
  • 1310–1312 – Dino Compagni uses the word in the sense “wicked”.[2][4]
  • About 1313 – Dante uses cattivo for “captive”.[9]
  • 14th century – A Bible translation uses it for things unfit for their purpose.[2]
  • 16th century – Middle French borrows the word as cattif.[10]
  • 1797 – D'Alberti records only the stress cattiverìa.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. wicked, bad, inclined to do harm: È un uomo cattivo e senza pietà.[4][15][11][1]
  2. Morally wrong; leading to evil: Quel ragazzo ha preso una cattiva strada.[4][15][6]
  3. Unkind, hostile; of a child, naughty, disobedient: Non essere cattivo con tua sorella![4][15][6]
  4. Of animals, fierce, aggressive: il lupo cattivo.[4][15][6]
  5. Poor at a task or of poor quality; incorrect: Parla un cattivo tedesco.[4][11][16]
  6. Unpleasant, unfavourable: cattivo tempo, cattivo odore.[11][16][17]
  7. (literary, archaic) Captive; wretched.[11][1][12]

Noun

  1. A wicked person; in a story or film, the villain.[11][1]
  2. A naughty, disobedient person, especially a child.[11][18]

Word family

  • cattiveria
  • cattività
  • cattivare
  • accattivare
  • incattivire
  • cattivello
  • cattivamente
  • cattivone
  • cattivaccio

Usage notes

The comparative is più cattivo or peggiore, the superlative cattivissimo or pessimo.[16] In Sicily, Calabria, Taranto and Sardinia the feminine survives as a noun meaning “widow” (Sicilian cattiva), a trace of the old sense “wretched”.[8][2][19] Con le cattive means “by force, roughly”, as against con le buone.[4][16]

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 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 11, 969
  10. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 817
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  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, p. 1, 1297
  15. ^ 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
  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
  18. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
  19. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 818