centinaio

Forms

centinaio m (plural centinaia f)^[1] Old Italian forms include centenaio, centonaio, centinaro and centener.^[2][3] The plural is feminine, centinaia.^[1][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin centēnārius (“containing a hundred”), used as a noun in the neuter.^[5][6][7][1] In Late Latin the neuter noun meant a weight of a hundred pounds.^[7][8][3] The adjective comes from centēnus (“a hundred each”), from centum (“hundred”).^[5][1][8]

The same word gave Old French centenier, from which German Zentner (“hundredweight”) comes, and the old weight sense survives in Valmaggia as Lombard santunè, a weight and a scale.^[5][3][9] The Venetian and Veronese forms are Venetian centener and Venetian zentenàro.^[10] Through Ancient Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), a Byzantine form, the word reached Arabic, which gave cantaro and quintale.^[3] The Italian word is the popular form; the learned form of the same Latin word is centenario.^[6][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record in the TLIO is the Venetian pact with Aleppo of 1207–1208, where it is a unit of weight.^[2] For a group of a hundred the first record is a Sienese tax register of 1231–1232.^[11][2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the word for a hundred years: Dante's Vita Nuova (c. 1292–1293) speaks of the centinaio in which Beatrice was placed in the world.^[10][7] The phrase per centinaio gave rates and taxes per hundred, as in Boccaccio's a ragion di trenta per centinaio (“at the rate of thirty in the hundred”).^[2][12] Giovanni Villani counts diciotto centinaia di cavalieri, eighteen hundred knights.^[12]

The weight unit lasted into modern times: German borrowed it as Centinajo (1879) for an old Italian weight of 35 to 48 kilograms.^[13] Today the word mostly gives a round or approximate number, and in the plural a great quantity (centinaia di volte).^[7][4]

Timeline

• 1207–1208 – The Venetian pact with Aleppo uses the word for a unit of weight.^[2]
• 1231–1232 – A Sienese register uses it for a group of a hundred.^[11][2]
• c. 1292–1293 – Dante's Vita Nuova uses it for a century.^[10]
• c. 1370 – Boccaccio's Decameron has per centinaio “per cent”.^[10]
• 1879 – German Centinajo is recorded for an old Italian weight.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hundred, or about a hundred: un centinaio di invitati.^[7][4][6]
2. (plural) Hundreds, a great number: Ho centinaia di email da leggere.^[7][6][14]
3. (mathematics) The hundreds place in the decimal system.^[7][4][14]
4. (archaic) A century.^[7][4][6]

Related words

• cento
• centenario
• quintale
• Latin centēnārius
• Latin centum

Usage notes

A centinaia means “in great numbers”, and centinaia e centinaia “very many”.^[4][15][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 855
4. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 13, 853
11. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli