celare

Forms

celare (first-person singular present cèlo, first-person singular past historic celài, past participle celàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian forms include celar, cellare, cielare and Venetian zelare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cēlō (“to hide”), a learned word according to DELI and DEI.^[4][5][6][1] The LEI notes that the REW, Faré and the FEW take it instead as inherited directly from Latin.^[2][7] The verb is panromance: French celer, Occitan celar, Catalan celar, Spanish celar and Portuguese celar.^[8][2] For the everyday sense “to hide” the Romance languages mostly continue abscondō instead.^[2]

According to de Vaan the Latin verb is probably formed from a noun with a long vowel, a root noun of Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide”), whose thematic present lives on in occulō.^[9][10] The same root is in Old Irish celim (“I hide”) and Old High German helan (“to hide”), whence German hehlen (“to receive stolen goods”), and with other suffixes in Ancient Greek καλύπτω (kalúptō, “to cover, hide”) and the German words Helm, Halle and Hölle.^[8] In Latin it also gave cella, clam (“secretly”) and color.^[9][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first attestation is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum, of the early 13th century.^[3][2] Ruggieri d'Amici uses it before 1246, and Bonagiunta Orbicciani, DELI's first record, before 1257, of a love he cannot hide as he feels it.^[2][4][11] The sense is to keep something from sight or knowledge.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb widely: to say nothing, to mask, to dim a light, to hide oneself, to dissimulate or lie, and even to hold back from doing something.^[3] Dante writes of what the mist hides, ciò che cela il vapor che l'aere stipa (Inferno 31), and Piccarda tells him that her greater beauty will not hide her from him, non mi ti celerà l'esser più bella (Paradiso 3).^[11][12] Tommaseo distinguished celare as weaker than nascondere.^[12]

From the participle came celata, an ambush and later a light helmet, recorded from the 15th century, which French borrowed, giving salade.^[7][13][2] Today the verb is literary.^[1][14][15] A proverb says that love, a cough and smoke cannot be hidden.^[15][16]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur use the verb.^[3][2]
• Before 1246 – Ruggieri d'Amici uses celare.^[2]
• Before 1257 – Bonagiunta Orbicciani uses celar.^[4][2]
• 1292–1293 – Dante uses it in the Vita Nuova.^[2]
• 15th century – Celata “helmet” appears.^[7][13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, literary) To hide something or someone from view.^{[6][17][18][1]}
2. (transitive, literary) To keep something secret from others, with a for the person: celare un segreto agli amici.^[6][17][15]
3. (reflexive, celarsi) To hide oneself, also behind a false name: si celava dietro un nome inventato.^[15][19][18]
4. (pronominal) To hide something from oneself, refuse to acknowledge it.^[18]

Word family

• celato
• celata
• celamento
• celatore

Related words

• occultare
• cella
• clandestino
• Latin cēlō

Usage notes

The present is cèlo, with an open e.^[18][1] A separate, obsolete verb celare “to chase, engrave” is learned from Latin caelō.^[5][19][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 842
6. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ 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, 945
12. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 263
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
17. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ 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
19. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli