cornuto

Forms

cornuto (feminine cornuta, masculine plural cornuti, feminine plural cornute)^[1] Old Italian forms include cornudo and cornutu, and Giacomino da Verona has cornuo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cornūtus (“horned”), formed from cornū (“horn”) with the suffix -ūtus, which means “provided with”, as in barbātus from barba.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} In Latin it also named an ox, any horned animal, and a sea creature.^[7] The word is Romanian cornut, French cornu, Occitan cornut, Catalan cornut, Spanish cornudo and Portuguese cornudo, and Dalmatian karnoit is the horned viper.^[8][9] The Latin noun for “horn” goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱrn-o- (“horn”).^[10]

The sense “cuckold” is old in all the Romance languages and has parallels in English horned and the German phrase Hörner aufsetzen; its origin is disputed.^[1] The Italian Wiktionary sees the anger of a betrayed husband in the fury of a bull.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the late 12th century, in the sense “having horns”.^[2] Giacomino da Verona describes a devil whose head is horned (La testa igi à cornua), and Dante has dimon cornuti with great whips in the Inferno.^[12][3]

Semantic evolution

Dante also uses the word for something with two points, the fiamma cornuta, and later writers apply it to the crescent moon and to an army drawn up in horns.^[5][13][14] Old Italian already used it for the victim of adultery and as an insult, and DELI first dates the sense “cuckold” to Luigi Pulci, before 1470.^[2][3] The Ciriffo has cornuto a quattro, and Berni becco cornuto.^[15] In thieves' slang cornute were cows and cornuto a bull.^[15]

In logic an argomento cornuto is a dilemma, whose two alternatives are its horns.^[16][14] The word passed into English as cornuto about 1430.^[17]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Proverbia que dicuntur have cornuto.^[2]
• End of the 13th century – Giacomino da Verona has cornuo.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses cornuto.^[3][5]
• About 1430 – English cornuto is recorded.^[17]
• Before 1470 – Luigi Pulci uses it for a cuckold.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. horned: having horns: un caprone cornuto.^[5][16][18]
2. (literary) Shaped like a horn or a pair of horns; ending in points.^[5][16]
3. (popular) Betrayed by one's partner: Si è scoperto cornuto dopo dieci anni..^[5][19]

Noun

1. (popular) A cuckold; also a general insult: Quel cornuto mi ha fregato il posto!^[5][16][20]

Word family

• cornutaccio
• cornutezza

Related words

• corno
• cornabò
• Latin cornūtus

Usage notes

Cornuto e mazziato, “cuckolded and beaten”, is said of someone who suffers a wrong and is punished for it too.^[5] GRADIT and Treccani also list a separate noun cornuto, a numismatic term (1956) for the coin also called cornabò, formed from corno.^[5][14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 118
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 793
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
18. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
19. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
20. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana