dado

Forms

dado m (plural dadi)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian dato, dao and dadu.^[2][3]

Etymology

The origin is disputed.^[4][5][1] The usual explanation, going back to Diez, is that it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dadum, from Latin datum (“given; thrown”), the past participle of dō (“to give”).^[4][6][1] The sense would come from the phrase calculum dare “to throw, move a playing piece”; the moved piece became the piece itself and then the die.^[4][5][7] Treccani and the GDLI say the Latin word first meant the throw and the points scored, and only then the die.^[8][7] The ⟨-d-⟩ for ⟨-t-⟩ is explained by a spread of the word from northern Italy, where that change is regular.^[4][9][10]

The sense “die” is not recorded for the Latin word.^[6] Meyer-Lübke found that the Italian forms point to a form with ⟨-d-⟩ but the Occitan ones to one with ⟨-t-⟩, so that he held the explanation doubtful.^[11] Corominas, and Kramer after him, proposed an Eastern source, a word for a game in Arabic or Persian, since many board games, chess among them, came from the Arab and Iranian lands;^[5][6] Nocentini objects that medieval sources show no trace of such a loan and that part of the Romance forms need an original ⟨-t-⟩.^[5][6] The LEI posits a Late Latin form with ⟨-d-⟩ and leaves its remote origin open; a form with ⟨-t-⟩ is probable for Friulian dât, Romansh dat and Old Occitan datz, while Catalan dau and the Tuscan and southern Italian forms need ⟨-d-⟩.^[6] Wiktionary also mentions Arabic أَعْدَاد (ʔaʕdād, “numbers”) as a possible source.^[1]

The word is found in all the Romance languages except Romanian: French dé, Old Occitan dat, Spanish dado, Portuguese dado and Sardinian dadu.^[6][11][5] The French word is the source of English die.^[1] It replaced Latin tessera and Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos) as the name of the die.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Brunetto Latini's Tesoretto, written before 1274: a small cube of ivory, wood or bone with one to six points on its faces, used for gambling or to foretell the future.^[2][4] The form dato with this sense appears in the northern Proverbia super natura feminarum.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the plural dadi also named the game of dice itself, and the die stood for chance or fate.^[2] The general sense “cube” is recorded in Leonardo, before 1519, and any cube-shaped object in Annibale Caro, before 1566.^[4] In architecture Filarete used it before 1465 for the block of a pedestal between base and cornice.^[4] English borrowed this sense as dado in 1664, and later used it for the lower part of a room's wall (1787) and its painted or papered finish (1877).^[13]

Engineers called the threaded nut that is screwed onto a bolt dato in 1665 and dado before 1696 (Baldinucci).^[4] DEI records the 16th-century senses “cube-shaped artillery projectile” and “heel bone”, and an instrument of torture that squeezed the ankles, recorded from the 15th century.^[12] The dado da brodo, the stock cube, is named in a book title of 1912.^[4] In mountaineering a dado is a metal chock wedged into a crack in the rock.^[14][15]

Timeline

• Before 1274 – Brunetto Latini uses the word in the Tesoretto.^[2]
• 1291 – Dado is recorded in Old Paduan.^[6]
• Before 1465 – Filarete uses it for a part of a pedestal.^[4]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo uses it for a cube.^[4]
• 1664 – English dado is first recorded, in architecture.^[13]
• 1665 – Dato is recorded for the nut of a screw;^[4] dado follows before 1696.^[4]
• 1912 – I dadi di brodo, a book by C. Conti, names the stock cube.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A die: a small cube marked on its six faces with one to six points, used mostly in pairs for games, especially of chance: giocare ai dadi.^[14][16][9]
2. (by extension) Any small cube-shaped object;^[14][15][17] a dadi “in cubes” and, of fabric, “checked”: Taglia le patate a dadi.^[14][15][17]
3. (cooking) A stock cube (dado da brodo).^[14][15][18]
4. (engineering) A nut: a square or hexagonal piece with a threaded hole that is screwed onto a bolt.^[14][15][18]
5. (mountaineering) A metal chock wedged into a crack in the rock as an anchor.^[14][15]
6. (architecture) The dado or die of a pedestal, the block between the base and the cornice.^[14][15][18]
7. (historical) A square-sectioned lead shot for blunderbusses and muskets; also a form of torture squeezing the ankles between two iron blocks, used until the 18th century.^[14][9]

Word family

• controdado
• dadino
• dadolata

Related words

• dare
• dato
• Latin datum

Usage notes

Il dado è tratto “the die is cast” renders the Latin alea iacta est that Suetonius attributes to Caesar at the Rubicon, and means that a decision has been taken and cannot be undone.^[16][15][8]

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 Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 361
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 327
7. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1203
13. ^ a b 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 g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
18. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana