costare

Forms

costare (first-person singular present còsto, first-person singular past historic costài, past participle costàto, auxiliary èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cōnstāre (“to stand firm; to cost, be worth”), from stō (“to stand”) with the prefix con-.^[2][3][4][1] Sabatini notes that it is a popular word, with the Latin cluster /nst/ simplified to /st/, beside the learned doublet constare.^[5][1] The Latin meaning “to stay fixed” led to “to have a fixed value”, and so “to cost”.^[3][6]

The verb is pan-Romance: French coûter, Occitan costar, Catalan costar, Spanish costar, Portuguese custar and Sardinian costare.^[3][7][8] In Romanian custa it kept a sense nearer the Latin, “to live”, and Meyer-Lübke cites an old Romanian greeting meaning “God keep you”.^[3][7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Savona document of 1178–82, in the sense “to have a certain price, to require a certain expense”.^[10] DELI's first record is the Nuovi testi fiorentini, before 1236.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Before 1294 Brunetto Latini used the verb figuratively for what causes pain or sacrifice, and Dante writes of a fault che laggiù cotanto costa, “that costs so dear down there”.^[2][11] The TLIO records costare la vita, to pay with one's life, in Old Italian.^[10] Tommaseo set it against valere: costare is the current price, valere the intrinsic worth.^[11]

The old sense “to be evident”, the meaning of constare, is found in Caterina da Siena, Galileo and Salvini.^[12][11] The noun costo, cost, is recorded from Iacopone before 1306, and costoso, expensive, from 1789.^[2] Romanian costa and Serbo-Croatian коштати (koštati) were borrowed from the Italian verb.^[1]

Timeline

• 1178–1182 – A Savona document has the first record.^[10]
• Before 1236 – The Nuovi testi fiorentini use it of a price.^[2]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it of pain and sacrifice.^[2]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses costo.^[2]
• 1789 – Costoso is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cost, to have a certain price: Quanto costa questa giacca?^[4][13][5]
2. To be expensive: In questa città la vita costa.^[4][13][5]
3. (figurative) To require effort, pain or sacrifice, or to cost someone something: Quell'errore gli è costato il lavoro.^[4][13][5]
4. (figurative) To be hard for someone, to weigh on them: Mi costa ammetterlo.^[4][13][5]

Word family

• costo
• costoso
• sottocosto
• costicchiare

Related words

• constare
• stare
• Latin cōnstō
• French coûter

Usage notes

The verb takes essere as its auxiliary.^[1][13] Set phrases include costare caro (to cost dear, also figuratively), costare un occhio della testa (to cost an arm and a leg) and costi quel che costi (whatever it takes).^[4][6][14]

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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1133
10. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 339
13. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana