codesto

Forms

codesto (feminine codesta, masculine plural codesti, feminine plural codeste)^[1] Old Italian forms include cotesto, chotesto and chetesto.^[2] An old variant costetto is also recorded.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Italian cotesto (earlier cotevesto), inherited from Vulgar Latin *eccum tibi istum (“here you have this”), contracted.^[1] DELI, Nocentini, DEI, GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti give the same phrase, GRADIT as the probable source.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} It joins the presentative eccum (“here he is”) (the source of ecco), tibi (“to you”), the dative of the second-person pronoun tū, and the demonstrative iste (“that (near you)”), the source of questo in the parallel phrase *eccum iste.^[6][1]

The spelling with ⟨d⟩ shows the northern voicing of /t/ between vowels: Devoto, Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti explain the form as the Tuscan word reshaped by the northern dialects, and DEI too calls the ⟨d⟩ northern.^{[10][11][9][7]} DELI thinks the form with ⟨d⟩ much more recent than the one with ⟨t⟩: Tommaseo prints it in texts of Sacchetti and Redi, but only a study of the manuscripts and early editions could show whether these are the authors' own forms or editors' changes.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese letter of 1260, where the word points to something near the person addressed, the sense it still has.^[2] DELI dates cotesto from Dante, who died in 1321, and GRADIT gives before 1313.^[5][8]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the plural as a pronoun in the Inferno: E tu che se' costì, anima viva, / pàrtiti da cotesti che son morti (“And you who are there, living soul, get away from those who are dead”).^[3] The second Venetian edition of the Crusca dictionary (1763) still describes codesto as the same word as cotesto but little used.^[5] Sabatini–Coletti dates codesto from the 18th century and cotesto from the 14th.^[9]

The word completes a three-way system: questo for what is near the speaker, codesto for what is near the listener, quello for what is far from both.^[5] Outside Tuscany it is rare or literary, and other regions use only questo and quello; the frequency lexicon of Bortolini, Tagliavini and Zampolli (1972) does not list it among the 5,000 commonest Italian words, while questo and quello rank 25th and 26th.^[5][13] It has survived in official correspondence, where it names the office or firm the letter is sent to.^[8][13] F. Fochi argued in 1965 that standard Italian would gain from adopting it.^[5]

Timeline

• 1260 – First record, in a Sienese letter.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses cotesto.^[5]
• 1763 – The Venetian edition of the Crusca dictionary lists codesto as a little-used equivalent of cotesto.^[5]
• 1700s – Sabatini–Coletti dates the spelling codesto from the 18th century.^[9]
• 1972 – The word is absent from the list of the 5,000 most frequent Italian words.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (Tuscan, literary) that, this: referring to someone or something near the person spoken to, or belonging to them: Posa codesta valigia.^[8][11][13]
2. (bureaucratic) In formal letters, referring to the office, authority or company addressed: Si trasmette a codesto Comando la documentazione richiesta.^[8][11][3]

Pronoun

1. (Tuscan, literary) That one, this one: a person or thing near the listener.^[8][3][13]
2. (Tuscan, literary) With neuter value, that: Codesto non lo credo.^[11][3][13]

Related words

• questo
• quello
• ecco
• costui
• Latin iste

Usage notes

Codesto and cotesto are variants of one word, cotesto being the older and now less common spelling.^[11][5] Used of personal things it can stand for “your”.^[9] Non-Tuscan writers have long used it uncertainly.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1000
8. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)