comandamento

Forms

comandamento m (plural comandamenti)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Italian comandare + -mento.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The verb comandare goes back to a Vulgar Latin *commandāre, which took the place of classical Latin commendō (“to entrust, hand over”), a compound of cum (“with”) and mandō (“to entrust”).^[4][5] The GDLI compares French commandement, recorded in French from 1050.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Venetian text, the pact with Aleppo of 1207–1208, where the word means an order or what it lays down.^[7] DELI's first record, before 1292, is from Giamboni, with the sense “command, order”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian comandamento covered a wide range: an order and its content, a law or decision of an authority, a moral or religious precept, the rules of an art, and even, in trade, a document recording a loan.^[7] The religious sense, a precept that God has revealed and that binds the faithful, is first recorded in 1304 in Giordano da Pisa.^[4] In the Inferno Dante writes Tanto m'aggrada il tuo comandamento (“Your command pleases me so much”).^[6][2] Old Italian also had a plural comandamenta.^[8][9]

The general sense of an order has since become archaic or rare, and the word now refers mainly to the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Sinai and to the five precepts of the Catholic Church.^[10][2][3]

Timeline

• 1207–1208 – Comandamento appears in the Venetian pact with Aleppo.^[7]
• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses the word for an order.^[4]
• 1304 – Giordano da Pisa uses it for a precept given by God.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (religion) A divine precept taken as a moral and religious rule by the followers of a religion.^[2][3][11]
2. (Judaism, Christianity) Each of the ten laws that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai: i dieci comandamenti, the decalogo.^[2][12][10]
3. (Catholicism) Each of the five precepts of the Church binding on the baptised.^[2][10]
4. (archaic) A comando or order.^[2][3][10]

Related words

• comando
• comandante
• French commandement

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
8. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ 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)
11. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier