crepare

Forms

crepare (first-person singular present crèpo, first-person singular past historic crepài, past participle crepàto, auxiliary èssere)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian criepare and Old Italian creppare.^[2][3] Northern Italy and the Rhaeto-Romance area now say krepar, but old texts there often have Old Italian crevar.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin crepō (“to rattle, crack, creak”), a verb of imitative origin that came to mean “to burst”.^[5][6][7][1] The word is found across Romance: French crever “to die”, Occitan crebar, Catalan crebar, Spanish quebrar and Portuguese quebrar “to break”, Sardinian crebare “to make burst” and Romanian crăpa.^[6][4][8] Wiktionary notes that French and Romanian share the informal sense “to die”.^[1]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *krepa- and a root Proto-Indo-European *ḱrep- (“to rattle, crackle”).^[9] Nocentini compares Sanskrit कृपते (kṛpate, “to moan”), and notes that initial /kr/ is common in verbs for noises.^[6][1] The first meaning was the noise of things that break or burst, as in crepitare; it then passed to the breaking itself, as in crepa and crepatura, and to bursting, which for living beings meant death.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini, GRADIT and DELI date the verb from about 1225, from Garzo, in the sense “to die”.^[6][7][5] The TLIO's first record is Brunetto Latini's Tesoretto (before 1274), which says of one who puts so much in his belly that talora ne criepa (“sometimes he bursts from it”).^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

DELI dates the sense “to split open in cracks” from Bono Giamboni (before 1292) and “to be full to bursting” from Brunetto Latini (before 1294).^[5] Old Italian used it of walls, earth and skin that cracked, of grapes that split in the rain, of a body that burst, and of the heart;^[10][3][11] Dante writes la sete onde ti crepa ... la lingua (“the thirst that cracks your tongue”).^[10][3][11] Crepare delle risa, to burst with laughter, is already Old Italian.^[10]

Many compounds were formed from the imperative: crepacuore “heartbreak” (before 1342), a crepapelle “fit to burst” (1623) and a crepastomaco in Aretino.^[5][2] Modern colloquial phrases include crepare di salute, to be bursting with health, and crepi il lupo!, the reply to the good-luck wish in bocca al lupo.^[7][12][11] German borrowed the word as krepieren, “to die” from the late 17th century and, as a military term, “to explode” from 1808–1809;^[13][1] Dutch has creperen and Swedish krepera.^[13][1]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – Garzo uses the verb for “to die”.^[5][6]
• Before 1274 – Brunetto Latini uses criepa in the Tesoretto.^[10][3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for cracking open.^[5]
• Before 1342 – Crepacuore is recorded in Domenico Cavalca.^[5]
• c. 1350 – Crepaccio “deep crack” is recorded.^[5]
• 1623 – A crepapelle is recorded.^[5]
• 1681 – Crepa “crack in a wall” is recorded in Daniello Bartoli.^[5]
• Late 17th century – German krepieren “to die” is recorded.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To crack, split: of a wall, the ground or an object; of the skin, to chap: Con il gelo le tubature sono crepate.^[7][14][12]
2. (figurative, colloquial) To be at the limit of one's endurance, to burst: crepare dalle risa, to split one's sides laughing;^[7][14][12] crepare di caldo, di rabbia.^[7][14][12]
3. (colloquial) To suffer badly from something, or to be eaten up by a feeling such as envy.^[7][12]
4. (derogatory, vulgar) To die, especially of animals; of people, with contempt: crepare come un cane, to die alone and abandoned.^[7][14][11]

Pronominal verb

1. creparsi: to crack, split; of skin, to chap.^[12][11][15]

Word family

• crepa
• crepapelle
• crepaccio
• crepacuore
• crepatura
• screpolare
• screpolatura

Related words

• crepitare
• crettare
• Latin crepō
• French crever

Usage notes

In crepi il lupo!, crepi l'astrologo! (to ward off a gloomy forecast) and crepi l'avarizia! (when deciding on an unusual expense) the verb is an imperative wish.^[7][14][12] Crepare takes essere.^[1][14]

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
3. ^ a b c d e Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
11. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse