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corte

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Pronunciation

Forms

corte f (plural corti)[1] Old Italian forms include chorte, cort and curte.[2] In the north the word is Lombard curt and Piedmontese cort.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cohors (“enclosure, farmyard; troop”), in the contracted form cors that Latin already had.[4][5][6][7][1] The Medieval Latin curtis is a false Latinisation of the Romance word.[5] Italian also has the learned doublet coorte.[4][1][8] The word is pan-Romance: Old French court (now French cour), Occitan cort, Catalan cort, Spanish corte, Portuguese corte, Romanian curte, Friulian cort and Sardinian korte (“sheepfold”).[5][9][10]

The Latin word is formed with co- from the stem of Latin hortus (“enclosure, garden”), whence orto.[5][6][7][1] De Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Italic *kom + Proto-Italic *χorti- and suggests a verbal derivative of Proto-Indo-European *ǵher- (“to take, grab”), with doubt.[11][1]

The meaning moved from “enclosure” to “troop” and “bodyguard”, then to the retinue of a lord and his estate.[4][5] The LEI thinks the Latin sense “retinue of a nobleman” is the base of the feudal court.[9] DEI compares the same development in German Hof.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Fabriano document of 1186.[2] In 1219 the Breve di Montieri uses corte for a feudal estate, the lord's buildings and lands, and early in the 13th century Uguccione da Lodi uses it for a royal court.[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian corte named a courtyard or enclosure, a feudal estate, the residence of a king or lord and the people who lived there, the papal court, and also heaven as the corte celeste.[2][9] Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for a courtyard and Brunetto Latini for a body of judges (both before 1294); at the end of the 14th century Ser Giovanni uses it for the retinue of an important person.[4]

The refined manners of court life gave cortese and cortesia, both from Occitan, and corteggiare and fare la corte for paying court to a woman.[5][4] Fare la corte is a loan translation of French faire la cour (1538).[4] Corte dei miracoli is from French cour des miracles, and alta corte and bassa corte from French haute cour and basse-cour.[13][12] In the dialects of the north the word still names a farmyard, a dunghill, a cattle pen and the farmstead itself.[3][14]

Timeline

  • 1186 – Corte is recorded in a Fabriano document.[2]
  • 1219 – The Breve di Montieri uses it for a feudal estate.[4][5]
  • Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses it for a royal court.[4]
  • 1281–1288 – Salimbene writes Medieval Latin curtis for a courtyard.[4]
  • Before 1294 – Guittone uses it for a courtyard, and Brunetto Latini for a court of judges.[4]
  • Late 14th century – Ser Giovanni uses it for a retinue.[4]
  • 1538 – Fare la corte is borrowed from French.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A courtyard inside a building or group of buildings; the yard beside a farmhouse: Le galline razzolavano nella corte.[14][15][8]
  2. (history) The manor of the early Middle Ages, the lord's estate with its dependent holdings; in Lombardy, a farmstead housing several families.[14][15][8]
  3. The residence of a sovereign; the sovereign's family and courtiers; the sovereign and his government: Fu invitato a corte per il ballo di carnevale.[14][15][8]
  4. (figurative) A group of admirers or flatterers around an important person.[14][8][16]
  5. (law) A court, a body of judges: Corte d'appello, Corte costituzionale.[14][8][17]
  6. In Venice, a small square enclosed by houses.[14][18]

Word family

  • cortile
  • cortese
  • cortesia
  • corteggiare
  • corteggiamento
  • corteggiatore
  • corteggio
  • corteo
  • cortigiano
  • cortigiana
  • curtense

Usage notes

Fare la corte a qualcuno means to court someone, or to flatter a powerful person for favours.[17][16] Corte dei miracoli is a squalid haunt of beggars and petty criminals.[17][16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 565
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  9. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 564
  10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1125
  13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  14. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  15. ^ 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
  16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  17. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli