cenare

Forms

cenare (first-person singular present céno, first-person singular past historic cenài, past participle cenàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old northern forms include Genoese zenar (before 1311), Venetian çenar (1321) and zenar, and Old Sienese had Old Italian cienare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cēnō (“to dine”), a verb formed in Latin from cēna (“dinner, the main meal”).^[4][5][6][1] The LEI counts it among the words Latin passed on in popular form, while the sense “to eat the Last Supper”, said of Jesus and the apostles, is a learned reuse of the Latin verb.^[2]

The verb survives in most of the Romance languages: Romanian cina, Dalmatian kenur, Sardinian kenare, Romansh tschner, Friulian cenâ, Old French cener, Old Occitan cenar, Catalan cenar, Spanish cenar and Portuguese cear.^[7][2] In the dialects of Italy it reaches south as far as the Abruzzi, where it is ⟨cenà⟩, and is missing further south.^[8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *kertsnā (“meal”), which also gave Oscan kersnu “meal”.^[9][5] The usual explanation derives it from Proto-Indo-European *kert- (“to cut”), so that the first meaning was “portion, cut share”.^[9][5][4] Schrijver instead connects it with the name of the goddess Latin Cerēs, and de Vaan reports both views.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Storie de Troia e de Roma, a Roman text of 1252–1258, with the sense “to eat the evening meal”.^[3] DELI dates the Tuscan word from the Novellino at the end of the 13th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Latin cēna named the main meal of the day, eaten in the afternoon, and the verb first meant “to have the main meal”.^[5][2] In Italian it has always meant to eat the evening meal.^[3][10]

Old Italian used it figuratively for closeness to God, for eternal bliss and for the Eucharist, and in a turn of phrase that set dining among the dead against lunching among the living.^[3] Boccaccio has the proverb chi la sera non cena, tutta notte si dimena (whoever skips supper tosses all night), and the transitive use, “to eat something for supper”.^[11][12] That transitive use is now rare or archaic.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1252–1258 – First record, in the Roman Storie de Troia e de Roma.^[3]
• 1258 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[15]
• 1274 – Old Pavese cenare appears in Barsegapè.^[2]
• 1281–1300 – The Novellino uses the word in Florence.^[4][2]
• 1321 – Old Venetian çenar is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To have dinner, to eat the evening meal: Domani ceniamo dai nonni.^{[12][16][13][15][1]}
2. (transitive, rare or archaic) To eat something for supper.^{[12][13][14][1]}

Word family

• cenata
• cenatore
• ricenare

Related words

• cena
• cenacolo
• Latin cēnō
• Spanish cenar

Usage notes

The verb takes the auxiliary avere.^[16][1] With con it names the people one dines with or the food eaten.^[16] The cenacolo, the room of the Last Supper, is a learned word from Latin cenāculum.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 13, 817
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 e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 849
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier