conseguire

Forms

conseguire (first-person singular present conséguo or consèguo, first-person singular past historic conseguìi, past participle conseguìto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] Old Italian also has consequire, with spellings such as consequito and consecuto.^[2][3]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin cōnsequor (“to follow closely; to overtake; to obtain”), remade with the endings of seguire.^[4][5][6] GRADIT describes the change as a change of conjugation, and DEI, the GDLI and the REW start from the Vulgar and Medieval Latin active form *cōnsequere, which replaced the deponent of classical Latin;^{[7][8][2][9][1]} Wiktionary also allows a Vulgar Latin form in -īre.^{[7][8][2][9][1]}

The word is found across Romance except in Romanian: Old French consegre, Old Occitan consegre, Catalan consegre, Spanish conseguir and Portuguese conseguir.^[10][9][8]

The Latin verb is formed from con- and sequor (“to follow”).^[10][1] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *sekʷōr and the middle verb Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow, accompany”).^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Brunetto Latini's Rettorica (Florence, about 1260–1261), and its first sense is to reach a goal or obtain something as a result.^[3] DELI dates the transitive sense “to obtain, attain” from Dante (before 1321) and the intransitive “to follow as a consequence” from Bindo Bonichi (before 1338).^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the verb in its Latin physical sense: to come after, to follow someone, to chase, or to continue on a route, as in Giovanni Villani's per conseguire la nostra Storia (“to continue our History”).^[3][12][13] These senses are now archaic.^[12][14] The figurative sense of attaining an honour or a goal is in Boccaccio, Castiglione and Guicciardini, who wrote that he had often conseguito more honour and profit than he had hoped for.^[2]

The modern verb has two main uses: transitive “to obtain, achieve” (a prize, a degree, a victory), and intransitive, with essere, “to follow as a consequence”, often impersonal: ne consegue che “it follows that”.^[7][15][5] The present participle gave conseguente and the Latin noun consequentia gave conseguenza, whose spellings with ⟨qu⟩ (consequente, consequenza) were used by Dante.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1260–1261 – Brunetto Latini uses the verb in the Rettorica.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for “to obtain, attain”, and uses consequenza.^[4]
• Before 1338 – Bindo Bonichi uses it for “to follow as a consequence”.^[4]
• Before 1617 – Conseguimento is recorded in Bernardino Baldi.^[4]
• 1680 – Conseguibile is recorded in Paolo Segneri.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To obtain, achieve, reach: a goal, a prize, a qualification: Ha conseguito il dottorato a trent'anni.^[7][14][15]
2. (transitive, uncommon) To fulfil, satisfy: a wish or a plan.^[7][14][12]
3. (intransitive) To follow as a logical consequence, to ensue; often impersonal: Da queste cifre consegue che il bilancio è in perdita.^[7][15][5]
4. (intransitive) To come after in the order of events: Ne conseguirono anni difficili.^[7][12]
5. (archaic) To continue, go on, whether a story or a journey.^[7][14][12]

Word family

• conseguente
• conseguenza
• conseguibile
• conseguimento
• conseguitore

Related words

• asseguire
• consequenziale
• consequenziario
• eseguire
• inseguire
• perseguire
• proseguire
• seguire
• susseguire
• Latin cōnsequor

Usage notes

The present is conséguo, conjugated like seguire;^[5][16] Zingarelli also gives a literary conseguìsco.^[5][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1067
9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli