consuocero

Forms

consuocero m (plural consuoceri, feminine consuocera)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin consocer (“co-father-in-law”), reshaped after suocero.^[2][1] Battisti and Alessio call it a recomposition of the Latin word, which is recorded in Martial, with the stress and the diphthong of the simple Italian word.^[2] The inherited outcomes kept the Latin stress on the first syllable: Romanian cuscru and Ligurian sközer “father-in-law”.^[2][3] Tommaseo noted the Latin word in Ulpian.^[4]

GRADIT, Zingarelli and Gabrielli derive the Italian word directly from the Latin accusative, while Devoto–Oli, Sabatini–Coletti and the Treccani analyse it as from Italian con- + suocero.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

The Latin word survives elsewhere as Dalmatian consegro, Spanish consuegro and Portuguese consogro, and Romansh of the Engadine has konsür.^[3][11] The Romanian word also means “brother-in-law” and “wedding sponsor”.^[11] The Latin noun is formed from con- and socer (“father-in-law”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Battisti and Alessio date the word to the 14th century.^[2] Tommaseo quotes it from an old text on the Roman emperors, in the sense “the father of one's son-in-law or daughter-in-law”: Claudio uccise il suo consuocero (“Claudius killed his co-father-in-law”).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its single sense: the father, and with the feminine consuocera the mother, of one spouse in relation to the parents of the other.^[5][8][7] In the plural it names both pairs of parents whose children have married each other.^[1] The modern dictionaries record it only from 1830.^[5][6] Tommaseo entered it in his dictionary, and the GDLI quotes Gadda listing consuoceri among a family's many relations.^[12]

Timeline

• 1300s – Battisti and Alessio date the first record to the 14th century.^[2]
• 1830 – The date GRADIT and Zingarelli give for the first record.^[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. co-father-in-law: the father of one spouse in relation to the parents of the other (feminine consuocera).^{[5][8][9][7][1]}
2. (in the plural) The parents of two married people in relation to each other.^[1][7]

Related words

• suocero
• Latin consocer
• Spanish consuegro

Usage notes

In Calabria the same relationship is named sumpèssaru, from the Greek word of the same formation, which came through Byzantine Greek.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1072
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
8. ^ a b c 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 625