contrastare

Forms

contrastare (first-person singular present contràsto, first-person singular past historic contrastài, past participle contrastàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old variant Old Italian contastare, widespread from Brunetto Latini's Rettorica (about 1260–1261), was influenced by contestare.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

In Nocentini's view it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *contrastāre, formed from the phrase “to stand against”.^[5][6] DELI, GRADIT and Zingarelli give the source as that Latin phrase, “to set oneself against”.^[7][8][9] Devoto, Devoto–Oli, Sabatini–Coletti and Treccani speak of a Late Latin contrastāre, and Wiktionary, DEI and GDLI treat the Italian verb as a learned borrowing of it.^{[10][3][11][4][1][12][13]} The parts are contrā (“against”) and stō (“to stand”).^[5][1]

French contraster and Spanish contrastar spread from Italian.^[5] DEI dates French contraste to 1580 and the verb to the 16th century, taken from Italian beside Old French contrester (“to dispute”).^[12] DIFIT explains the French verb as the Old French one crossed with the Italian verb.^[14]

The Latin preposition continues the ablative of Proto-Italic *komteros (“the other of two who meet”), from the root of cum (“with”).^[15][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Patecchio's Splanamento, a Cremonese poem of the first decades of the 13th century.^[2] DELI's first dated sense is “to contradict, call into question”, in Giacomo da Lentini before 1250.^[7][14]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb meant to oppose someone's action or will, to put an obstacle in the way, to hold out against the wind, to fight, to argue against, to lodge a legal objection, and to compete.^[2] Dante wrote of the people who fell per contastare a Ruberto Guiscardo (for resisting Robert Guiscard), and Petrarch that fortune rarely fails to oppose great enterprises (fortuna ingiuriosa non contrasti).^[13][4]

The noun contrasto, recorded from Cavalca, meant a quarrel by the time of Villani.^[7] With Leonardo it gained the sense of a contrast of light and colour, which passed into French in the 16th and 17th centuries and went on from French into English and German.^[7][14][6] The modern intransitive sense “to clash, be at odds”, of colours or opinions, belongs to the same development.^[8][4] Photography uses the verb for heightening contrast, and the noun has been used for the contrast of a television picture since 1964.^[11][4][7]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – Patecchio's Splanamento has the first record.^[2]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses it for “to contradict”.^[7]
• About 1260–1261 – Brunetto Latini uses the variant contastare.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses it for “to hinder”.^[7]
• Before 1332 – Alberto della Piagentina uses it for “to compete”.^[7]
• Before 1342 – Cavalca uses the noun contrasto.^[7]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo uses contrasto for an opposition or contrast.^[7]
• 1541 – French contraster “to oppose” is recorded.^[14]
• 1669 – French contraster is used in art for “to set in contrast”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To clash, be at odds or in contrast: il rosso contrasta col verde;^{[8][3][11][16]} le loro versioni contrastano.^{[8][3][11][16]}
2. (intransitive) To quarrel, argue: contrastare con il padrone di casa sull'affitto.^{[8][3][9][16]}
3. (intransitive, literary) To struggle, fight: contrastare con la malattia.^{[8][3][9][16]}
4. (intransitive, literary) To oppose, stand in the way, with a.^[8][3][9][4]
5. (transitive) To hinder, thwart, oppose: contrastare l'avanzata delle truppe; to dispute: nessuno gli contrasta quel diritto.^{[8][3][11][9][17]}
6. (transitive, photography) To heighten the contrast of an image or colours.^[11][16][17]
7. (reflexive, reciprocal) Contrastarsi: to oppose each other; to vie for something.^{[3][11][9][16]}

Word family

• contrasto
• contrastante
• contrastato
• contrastabile
• incontrastabile
• contrastamento
• contrastivo

Related words

• stare
• contro
• contrario
• French contraster
• English contrast

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 326
7. ^ 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
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1082
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 686
14. ^ a b c d e Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
16. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli