corpo

Forms

corpo m (plural corpi)^[1] Old Italian had a feminine plural Old Italian corpora, from the Latin neuter plural, still found in literary use.^[2][3] An old singular is Old Italian corpore.^[4][5] Other old forms include Old Italian cuorpo, Old Italian corpu and Old Italian korpo.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corpus (“body; corpse; substance; body of people”).^[7][8][9][1] The Latin neuter became a masculine noun in Italian.^[10][2] The word is pan-Romance: French corps, Occitan cors, Catalan cos, Spanish cuerpo, Portuguese corpo, Sardinian corpus and Romanian corp.^[8][11] Latin passed it on to Welsh corff, German Körper and Basque korpitz.^[4][11] The learned derivatives, such as corporale, corporeo, corpulento and corpuscolo, came into Italian directly from Latin, and corpus is a later learned doublet.^[7][1]

DELI calls the origin of the Latin word uncertain.^[7] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *korp-os- and Proto-Indo-European *ḱrp-os- (“body”), and compares Sanskrit कृप् (kṛp-, “appearance”), Avestan kəhrp- (“figure, body”), Old English hrif (“belly, womb”) and Old High German href (“lap, belly”).^[12][1] Nocentini adds Ancient Greek πραπίς (prapís, “diaphragm”) and Old Church Slavonic чрѣво (črěvo, “belly”), and notes that Indo-European anatomical words are rare and vague in meaning.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Postilla amiatina of 1087, one of the earliest texts in Italian, and Nocentini dates the word to that year.^[6][8] DELI dates the sense “the physical structure of a human or animal” to Rinaldo d'Aquino, early in the 13th century, and “a portion of matter with a given shape” to Ubertino d'Arezzo, before 1266, the date GRADIT gives.^[7][9]

Semantic evolution

By the 14th century the word had most of its modern senses: a body of people with common rules (13th–14th century, statutes of the Company of Orsanmichele), a military unit (before 1292, Bono Giamboni), the belly (before 1342, Cavalca), the main part of something and the hull of a ship (before 1363, Matteo Villani), and a complete collection of writings (before 1375, Boccaccio).^[7] The phrase andare di corpo “to empty the bowels” goes back to the sense “belly”.^[4] Later senses are the sound box of a stringed instrument (1561) and the body of a printing type (1797).^[7] German borrowed the military sense as Corpo in 1728.^[13]

Several phrases came from French: guardia del corpo (16th century) from gardes du corps, and corpo a corpo (about 1914), first of hand-to-hand fighting and then in boxing, where it replaced English clinch.^[4] Corporazione renders French corporation (1530); it spread in Italy in the Napoleonic period and was taken up again under Fascism, with corporativo and corporativismo.^[7] Latin corpus mysticum meant the Eucharist until the second half of the 12th century, and only then the Church.^[7]

Timeline

• 1087 – Corpo appears in the Postilla amiatina.^[6][8]
• Early 13th century – Rinaldo d'Aquino uses it for the human body.^[7]
• Before 1266 – Ubertino d'Arezzo uses it for a portion of matter.^[7][9]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for a military unit.^[7]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it for the belly.^[7]
• Before 1375 – Boccaccio uses it for a collection of writings.^[7]
• 1728 – German first records Corpo in the military sense.^[13]
• 1797 – It is recorded for the body of a printing type.^[7]
• About 1914 – Corpo a corpo is taken from French corps à corps.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (physics) A body, a portion of matter with its own shape and properties: corpi solidi, liquidi e gassosi, corpo celeste, a heavenly body.^[9][14][3]
2. The body of a human being or animal; build, physique: Dopo la corsa mi faceva male tutto il corpo.^[9][15][3]
3. The flesh, as opposed to the soul or spirit: i piaceri del corpo.^[9][3]
4. The trunk of the body, (popular) the belly.^[9][15]
5. A dead body, corpse: Il corpo fu ritrovato nel fiume.^[9][15][1]
6. The main part of something: the body of a building, an engine or a text.^[15][7]
7. A whole made of many parts; a complete collection of works or laws: il corpo delle leggi romane.^[9][15]
8. A body of people with a common function, a corps: corpo diplomatico, corpo di ballo, (military) a unit: corpo d'armata.^[9][3][1]
9. Consistency, substance: of wine, fullness, prendere corpo, to take shape.^[14][16]
10. (printing) The body of a type, its size in points.^[7][1]

Word family

• corpetto
• corpino
• corporale
• corporatura
• corporazione
• corporativo
• corporeo
• corposo
• corpulento
• corpuscolo
• corpacciuto
• scorpacciata
• incorporare
• scorporare
• accorpare
• anticorpo

Related words

• corpus

Usage notes

Common phrases include guardia del corpo “bodyguard”, corpo a corpo “hand-to-hand fighting”, anima e corpo “wholeheartedly”, a corpo morto “with all one's might”, avere il diavolo in corpo “to be restless or furious” and corpo del reato “material evidence of a crime”.^[9][3][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 803
3. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1120
5. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b 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 d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana