chiostro

Forms

chiostro m (plural chiostri)^[1] Old Venetian texts have Old Italian clostro.^[2][3] The feminine chiostra continues the Latin plural.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin claustrum (“bolt, barrier; enclosed place”), with the Latin variant clostrum, formed on claudō (“to close”).^{[4][5][6][7][3][1]} In the early Middle Ages the word meant an enclosed space, as in the Rule of Saint Benedict, which led to the senses “monastery” and “cloister courtyard”.^[3][1]

The form with /o/ gave French cloître, Occitan claustre and German Kloster.^[5] The older sense “bolt” survives in Friulian clostri.^[8][3] The learned doublet is claustro.^[9][10]

claustrum adds the instrumental suffix -trum to the stem of claudō, and goes back to Proto-Italic *klaudtrom and to Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂ud- (“key, hook, nail”).^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Brunetto Latini's Tesoretto of about 1274, where a man nè dice paternostro / in chiesa nè in chiostro “says no Lord's Prayer, in church or in cloister”: the sense is a convent or monastery.^[2][11] Zingarelli dates the word to 1266.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The courtyard with its portico is chiostro from the Novellino at the end of the 13th century.^[4] Dante called paradise a chiostro, and the alto, eterno or stellato chiostro remained a poetic name for heaven until the 19th century.^[3][2] The word also meant monastic life, the precinct where the cathedral canons lived, the courtyard of a private house, and anything that closes, such as a bolt, a lock or a city wall.^[2][3]

In poetry it came to mean any secluded or enclosed place, as in Tasso's solitario chiostro.^[6][12] In Tuscany and Corsica it is an enclosure for animals, and in Pisa a courtyard.^[13][14]

Timeline

• About 1274 – Brunetto Latini uses chiostro in the Tesoretto.^[2]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for a convent.^[4]
• End of the 1200s – The Novellino uses it for the portico of a convent.^[4]
• Before 1319 – Dante calls paradise a chiostro.^[3]
• First half of the 1300s – Tuscan chiostro means a bolt or lock.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cloister: the courtyard surrounded by porticoes inside a convent or abbey.^{[6][15][12][1]}
2. (by extension) A convent, a monastery.^[6][15][16]
3. (figurative) Monastic life.^[6][15][16]
4. (literary) A secluded or enclosed place, and in the plural the heavens or the underworld.^[6][12]
5. (archaic) The enclosure where the canons of a cathedral lived.^[6][15][12]

Word family

• chiostriere
• chiostrino

Related words

• chiostra
• claustro
• chiudere
• Latin claustrum
• French cloître

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 14, 1243
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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET
14. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 907
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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse