confronto

Forms

confronto m (plural confronti)^[1]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from confrontare (“to compare”), formed without a suffix.^[2][3][4][1] The verb is recorded from the end of the 14th century;^[2][3][1] DELI derives it from French confronter (14th century), Nocentini and Wiktionary directly from Medieval Latin cōnfrontāre.^[2][3][1] The Latin verb is built on Latin frōns (“forehead; front”) with the prefix con-, so it first meant “to set face to face”.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Emanuele Tesauro (before 1675), in the sense “the act or result of comparing”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries used it for a comparison or a check: Segneri, Gasparo Gozzi, Baretti and Alfieri all have it.^[6] Tommaseo distinguished it from paragone: a confronto sets things side by side, two at a time, looking for closer correspondences.^[7]

Manzoni (1842) has the legal sense, the confrontation of witnesses or defendants whose statements disagree.^[2] The modern dictionaries add a debate between opposing views, a sports match, and the collation of manuscripts in philology.^[4][8][5] The confronto all'americana is the police line-up, in which a witness picks a suspect out of a group of people who look alike.^[5][9]

Timeline

• Late 14th century – The verb confrontare is first recorded.^[2]
• Before 1675 – Emanuele Tesauro uses confronto.^[2]
• 1842 – Manzoni uses it for the legal confrontation of witnesses.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A comparison: the act of comparing people or things, and its result: Il confronto fra le due traduzioni mostra molte differenze.^[4][8][10]
2. A debate or exchange between people holding different views: un confronto televisivo tra i candidati.^[4][8][9]
3. (sports) A match or contest: La squadra ha perso il confronto diretto.^[4][8][10]
4. (law) The simultaneous questioning of witnesses or defendants whose earlier statements disagree, a confrontation.^[4][10][5]
5. (philology) The collation of manuscripts.^[8][5][11]
6. (computing) The comparison of two numerical data.^[4][11]

Related words

• confrontare
• raffronto
• fronte
• affrontare

Usage notes

In confronto a and a confronto di mean “compared with”;^[5][9] nei confronti di means “towards, with regard to”.^[5][9] Senza confronto means “incomparably”, non temere confronti “to be second to none”, and reggere il confronto “to stand comparison”.^[5][9][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
10. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli