costruire

Forms

costruire (first-person singular present costruìsco, first-person singular past historic costruìi, past participle costruìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Older and literary forms are construire and costrurre, and a literary past participle costrutto.^[2][3][4] DEI explains costrurre by analogy with trarre and condurre;^[4][5] Tommaseo thought it barbarous.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cōnstruō (“to heap up, arrange, build”), which moved to the verbs in ⟨-ire⟩.^[6][7][8][9] The Latin verb is formed from con- (“together”) and struō (“to arrange, build”).^[6][7][8] French construire is recorded in 1466, after an earlier Old French construer of 1290, and Spanish construir is its Spanish counterpart.^[4][7]

The simple verb comes from Proto-Italic *strow-e/o-, from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to strew”), and its cognates include Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌾𐌰𐌽 (straujan, “to strew”).^[10] The same Latin verb gives struttura, and Devoto compares distruggere, which has a different form.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Sienese Fatti di Cesare of the late 13th century, in the sense “to put several parts together to make one object, such as a building, walls or a ship”.^[11] DELI and Nocentini date it to Dante, before 1321.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the verb for bringing into being and for arranging a sentence according to syntax or rhetoric;^[11] DELI's first date for the grammatical sense is Buommattei (1623–1641), but Dante already uses costruzione for the arrangement of a sentence in 1304–1308.^[6] Ariosto writes of a wall “antiquamente … construtto”, built in ancient times, and Tasso and Monti still use the participle costrutto.^[12]

Tommaseo distinguished costruire, putting the parts together in order, from edificare, giving the whole a fine form.^[5] The modern dictionaries add the figurative senses “to create, devise”, the geometrical “to construct a figure” and the football sense “to build up play”.^[8][2][13]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Fatti di Cesare use costruire.^[11]
• 1290 – French construer is recorded.^[4]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses costruzione for the arrangement of a sentence.^[6]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses costruire “to build”.^[6][7]
• 1466 – French construire is recorded.^[4]
• 1623–1641 – Buommattei uses it for arranging words grammatically.^[6]
• 1804 – Ricostruire is recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To build, put up (a building, a bridge, a road); also without an object: In quella zona non si può più costruire.^[8][2][14]
2. To make by putting parts together; to construct (a machine, a piece of furniture): Mio nonno ha costruito da solo questa barca.^[8][2][15]
3. (figurative) To create, devise, build up: costruire una carriera, costruire il proprio futuro.^[8][14][13]
4. (grammar) To arrange the words of a sentence according to the rules of syntax.^[8][2][15]
5. (geometry) To construct (a figure or a quantity) according to given rules.^[8][2][13]
6. (sport) To build up (play, an attack) according to a plan.^[8][2][13]
7. (reflexive) costruirsi: to build or create for oneself: Si è costruito una casa al mare.^[14][15]

Word family

• costruzione
• costruttore
• costruttivo
• costrutto
• costruibile
• costruito
• ricostruire
• ricostruzione
• ricostruttore

Related words

• struttura
• distruggere
• istruire
• Latin struō

Usage notes

The present is costruisco, costruisci; the past historic is costruii, in literary use also costrussi, and the past participle costruito, literary costrutto.^[2][15][16] Costruire sulla sabbia is to build on sand, to do something that will not last.^[2][13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1136
5. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 908
13. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli