contado

Forms

contado m (plural contadi)^[1] Old Italian forms include Tuscan contato, Genoese contao and condado.^[2][3] The form with /t/ survives in Sicilian cuntatu.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Medieval Latin comitatus (“fief and jurisdiction of a count”), from Latin comitātus (“escort, retinue”).^[4][5][6][1] The classical word is derived from comes (“companion”), according to Wiktionary through the verb comitor (“to accompany”).^[5][1] In Late Latin the noun named an imperial official, and it became the word for a count, Italian conte.^[1][5][3]

DEI, Devoto and Sabatini–Coletti take the voiced ⟨d⟩ as a sign that the word reached Tuscan through the northern dialects;^[7][8][9][3] Old Tuscan had contato with /t/.^[7][8][9][3] Devoto and Treccani instead derive it from Old Occitan comtat, the Old Occitan form of the Latin word.^[8][10] Wiktionary calls it a doublet of contea.^[1]

The same Latin word gave French comté, Occitan comtat, Catalan comtat, Spanish condado and Portuguese condado.^[5][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese document of 1235;^[2][4] DELI dates the sense “territory around a city” from the Bolognese notary Guido Faba (before 1243).^[2][4] The LEI has Tuscan contato for a count's territory in the first half of the 13th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Medieval Latin comitatus covered both a city and the land around it.^[4] From the 11th century the civitas began to be set apart from the comitatus, which passed from the land ruled by a count to the land ruled by a city commune.^[4] The TLIO's first sense is this communal territory, and Giovanni Villani wrote that every commune wanted to widen and grow its contado.^[2][10] The older sense of a count's domain is also kept, as in Villani's contado di Modigliana and Machiavelli's contado di Tirolo.^[12][2]

From the territory the word passed to its people, the inhabitants of the countryside, and to the countryside around a city in general.^[2][6] Its derivative contadino (13th century) at first meant only an inhabitant of the contado; both senses lived side by side in the 14th century, and “farm worker” prevailed only in the 15th.^[4]

Timeline

• 1208 – Medieval Latin contadinus “inhabitant of the contado” is recorded at Florence.^[4]
• 1235 – First Italian record, in a Sienese document.^[2]
• Before 1243 – Guido Faba uses it for the territory around a city.^[4]
• 1322 – The adjective contadino is recorded in a Pisan statute.^[4]
• 1524 – Castiglione uses northern contado for the countryside outside a city.^[3]
• 1763–1765 – Giuseppe Baretti uses contadiname for country people as a group.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) The territory under the jurisdiction of a count; a county.^[6][9][13]
2. (historical) The territory around a medieval comune or republic and subject to it.^[6][14][9]
3. The countryside around a city, with its villages and farms, especially in central Italy: le ville del contado fiorentino.^[6][14][10]
4. The people who live in such countryside.^[6][14][10]

Word family

• contadino
• contadiname
• contadinesco

Related words

• comitato
• conte
• contea
• contessa
• Latin comitātus

Usage notes

Zingarelli marks the sense “countryside” as no longer in use, while GRADIT lists it as current, especially for the areas of central Italy with medieval traditions.^[13][6] Old Italian had set phrases such as essere in contado, to be under a city's jurisdiction, and recare a contado, to bring a territory under a city's rule.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 1286
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1073
8. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
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. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ 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