Etymologically
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costare

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Pronunciation

  • /kosˈta.re/[1]

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

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