cinque

Forms

cinque (invariable; also used as a masculine noun, and in the feminine plural for the hours: le cinque)^[1][2][3] Old Italian also had cénque, cìnqua and cinche.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cīnque, inherited from Latin quīnque (“five”), with the first /kʷ/ dissimilated to /k/ before the second.^[6][7][8] The dissimilated form is already written in late Latin inscriptions.^[5] The same word is found across the Romance languages: French cinq, Occitan cinc, Catalan cinc, Spanish cinco, Portuguese cinco, Sardinian chimbe and Romanian cinci.^[7][9]

Like the other basic numerals, the Latin word is inherited, through Proto-Italic *kʷenkʷe, from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (“five”).^[10][7] In Italic the initial /p/ was assimilated to the /kʷ/ of the next syllable, as in coquō (“to cook”).^[7][8] The cognates include Ancient Greek πέντε (pénte), Sanskrit पञ्च (páñca), Lithuanian penkì, Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐌼𐍆 (fimf) and Old Irish cóic.^[10][7] The long /iː/ of the Latin numeral was taken over from the ordinal quīntus (“fifth”), where the vowel had been lengthened before a lost consonant.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The numeral is first recorded in 1211, in a Florentine merchant's account book, one of the oldest documents of Tuscan.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

Besides counting, the numeral has always named a date, an hour and a playing card or face of a die: Tommaseo quotes Boccaccio's cinque miglia and records E cinque! as a familiar exclamation at something tiresomely repeated.^[11][2] In schools it is the mark just below a pass on the scale to ten.^[2][12]

The compounds have their own histories: cinquecento “five hundred” is in Boccaccio (1352), il Cinquecento “the 16th century” in Algarotti before 1764, and in 1965 la cinquecento became the name of a small car;^[6][7] cinquina, a set of five, is recorded in 1444, and later the five numbers of a lottery or bingo row.^[6][7] In dialect cinque was also a nursery word for money.^[5]

Timeline

• 1211 – First record, in a Florentine account book.^[6]
• 1352 – Boccaccio uses cinquecento.^[6]
• 1444 – Cinquina “a set of five” is recorded.^[6]
• Before 1764 – Algarotti uses Cinquecento for the 16th century.^[6]
• 1865 – Cinquenne “five years old” is recorded, remade after decenne.^[6][7]
• 1965 – Cinquecento is recorded as the name of a small car.^[6]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Five, one more than four (5, V): Abbiamo aspettato cinque ore.^[2][13][12]
2. After a noun, used as an ordinal, fifth: capitolo cinque, binario cinque.^[2][13]

Noun

1. The number five and the figure that represents it.^[2][3]
2. The fifth day of a month: Torno il cinque di marzo.^[2][3]
3. (in the feminine plural) Five o'clock: Ci vediamo alle cinque.^[2][3]
4. A mark of five out of ten at school, just below a pass.^[2][12][14]
5. A five in a suit of playing cards.^[2][3]

Word family

• cinquecento
• cinquecentesco
• cinquecentista
• cinquemila
• cinquina
• cinquenne
• cinquefoglie

Related words

• quinto
• cinquanta
• Latin quinque

Usage notes

Avere i cinque minuti means to have a fit of bad temper, and in cinque minuti “very quickly”.^[13][15] Dare il cinque or battere il cinque is to give someone a high five.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 948
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli