circolo

Forms

circolo m (plural circoli)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian circulo, Old Italian cercolo and Old Italian cierchulo.^[2] Circulo survives as a literary form.^[3]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin cĭrcŭlus (“circle, ring”), a diminutive of circus (“circle”).^{[4][5][6][7][1]} The popular word from the same Latin noun is cerchio, which shows the syncope of the middle vowel.^[1][8] The Latin word survives in all the Romance languages, as French cercle, Old Occitan cercle, Catalan cercle and Romanian cerc.^[8][9]

De Vaan considers the Latin noun probably a loan from Ancient Greek κρίκος (kríkos, “ring”), also κίρκος (kírkos), itself of uncertain origin.^[10] Nocentini also derives it from the Greek word and connects this with the root of Latin curvus (“curved”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Cronica deli imperadori of 1301, as circulo, “circle, circular figure”.^[2] DELI dates the sense “circle, circumference” to Dante's Convivio (1304–1308), where Dante says the circle can be called perfect when it has a point equally distant from the circumference.^[4][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was used in geometry and astronomy, for the circles drawn on the celestial sphere and the globe, for the circles of Dante's Hell and Purgatory and of the angels in his Paradise, and for an area or a period of time.^[2] The form circolo is recorded from Firenzuola (1518–1525).^[4]

The word then passed to people: a ring of people talking, at the end of the 15th century, an association with its own aims and its premises, from Vincenzo Monti in 1798, and a set of people of the same milieu, from Pietro Colletta before 1831.^[4] In the plural it now names the circles of a profession or class, such as political or military circles.^[6][12] In physiology it is the circulation of the blood, and in administration a district or office.^[6][13]

The derivatives circolare and circolazione are also old, and the circulation of the blood was described as circulatio by Andrea Cesalpino in 1559.^[4]

Timeline

• 1301 – Circulo appears in the Venetian Cronica deli imperadori.^[2]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses circulo in the Convivio.^[4]
• Before 1498 – Vespasiano da Bisticci uses circolo for a group of people.^[4]
• 1518–1525 – Agnolo Firenzuola writes the form circolo.^[4]
• 1798 – Vincenzo Monti uses the word for an association.^[4]
• Before 1831 – Pietro Colletta uses it for a social milieu.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Circle, circumference: I bambini si misero in circolo intorno alla maestra.^[6][7][12]
2. (geography, astronomy) Any of the imaginary circles drawn on the Earth or the celestial sphere to fix positions: circolo polare “polar circle”.^[6][7][13]
3. A club, a society of people who meet for recreation or culture, and the place where they meet.^[6][12][14]
4. An informal group of people who meet often, a circle of friends.^[6]
5. (chiefly plural) The people of a given class or profession: circoli politici “political circles”.^[6][12]
6. (physiology) The circulation of the blood.^[6][12][13]
7. (administration) A district or office: circolo didattico, the area of a primary-school directorate.^[6][13]
8. (logic) In circolo vizioso, a vicious circle.^[7][15]

Word family

• circolare
• circolante
• circolazione
• circolatorio
• semicircolo

Related words

• cerchio
• circo
• cerchia
• Latin circulus

Usage notes

Circolo is the learned form beside the popular cerchio, and in geometry it is a less common synonym of circonferenza.^[12][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 14, 619
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana