ciascuno

Forms

ciascuno (feminine ciascuna, no plural)^[1]

Etymology

In DELI's view it is inherited from Latin quisque (“each”) combined with ūnus (“one”), in the nominative.^[2] GRADIT, Devoto–Oli, Devoto and Wiktionary give the first part the Vulgar Latin form *cisque, dissimilated from quisque, and Wiktionary reconstructs the whole as *cisque-unus.^[3][4][5][1] Latin itself had the compound ūnusquisque (“each one”).^[6][7]

For Nocentini it is borrowed from Old French chascun (modern French chacun), formed from the same parts.^[8] Sabatini–Coletti think it probably came through Occitan.^[9] The ⟨a⟩ of the first syllable is taken from cadauno and the old Old Italian catuno, ultimately from Ancient Greek κατά (katá, “down; each”).^{[6][10][11][1]} The same blend gave cascun and Vicentine caske, and French formed chaque by back-formation.^[10][12] Old Occitan quec continues quisque without ūnus.^[6][10]

The Latin pronoun quisque is quis (“who”) with the particle -que.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the last quarter of the 12th century;^[13][2] DELI, which does not use it, dates the word from Brunetto Latini, before 1294.^[13][2] From the start it marks each member of a group taken one by one, and on its own it means “every person”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian had many forms, northern cascun, çascun, çaschun, cachun and others beside Tuscan ciascuno.^[13] The extended ciascheduno and the older ciascheuno of Bono Giamboni were also used.^[14] With periods of time, ciascun giorno or ciascun dì meant “every day, always”.^[13] Tommaseo noted that ciascuno points to single persons or things more sharply than uno and ognuno.^[15]

Today it is used only in the singular, as an adjective before a noun or as a pronoun, often with a partitive (ciascuno di noi) or with a distributive sense (dieci euro ciascuno).^[4][9][16]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Proverbia que dicuntur, a Venetian poem, has the word.^[13]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses the variant ciascheuno.^[14]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses ciascuno.^[2]

Meanings

Determiner

1. each, every: each single member of a group, taken one by one: ciascun ragazzo, ciascuna lettera.^[3][4][11]

Pronoun

1. Everyone, each person: Ciascuno porti il proprio libro.^[3][4][16]
2. Each one, followed by a partitive: ciascuno di loro.^[3][9]
3. (distributive) Apiece, each: I biglietti costano cinque euro ciascuno.^[3][9][11]

Related words

• ciascheduno
• cadauno
• ognuno
• uno
• French chacun

Usage notes

Ciascuno has no plural, and before a masculine noun it is shortened to ciascun as uno is to un, and before a feminine noun beginning with a vowel it is elided to ciascun’.^[4][16] When it follows a plural verb, the verb and agreements stay plural.^[9][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 922
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
13. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
14. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 284
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli