dannoso

Forms

dannoso (feminine dannosa, masculine plural dannosi, feminine plural dannose, superlative dannosissimo)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin damnōsus (“harmful, ruinous”), formed from damnum (“loss, damage”), the source of danno, with the suffix -ōsus.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The LEI treats it as a word continued in Italian, and the same adjective survives in Friulian danôs, Romansh dannus and Portuguese danoso.^[6] It is also Old French dampneus, Old Occitan dampnos and Catalan damnós.^[6]

De Vaan traces damnum to Proto-Italic *dapno- and Proto-Indo-European *dh₂p-no- (“expense, investment”), and connects it with daps (“sacrificial meal”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is Brunetto Latini's Rettorica of about 1260–1261, where a case is weighed as useful or harmful: s'ella è utile o s'ell'è dannosa (“whether it is useful or whether it is harmful”).^[8][9] DELI dates the word to Latini, before 1294.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was used above all for spiritual harm, leading to damnation, and also for material damage.^[8] Dante's glutton suffers “for the ruinous sin of gluttony” (Per la dannosa colpa della gola), the sense of irreparable ruin that is now archaic.^[9][4] Bosone da Gubbio, before 1333, used it of something that had suffered damage, a land laid waste.^[6][8]

Tommaseo records the Tuscan proverb Il più ricco è il più dannoso, “the richest do the most harm”, and the noun dannosità is recorded from 1844, in Rosmini.^[11][6] Zingarelli sets it beside nocivo, usable in the same ways, and pericoloso, said of what may cause harm.^[12]

Timeline

• About 1260–1261 – Brunetto Latini uses dannoso in the Rettorica.^[8]
• 1288 – The word appears in the Sienese translation of Egidio Colonna.^[6]
• 1301 – Venetian dannoso is recorded.^[6]
• About 1313 – Dante uses the word.^[6]
• Before 1333 – Bosone da Gubbio uses it for “laid waste”.^[6]
• 1844 – Dannosità is recorded in Rosmini.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. harmful, damaging; nocivo, with a or per: Il gelo è dannoso per le viti.^[2][4][13]
2. (archaic) Ruinous, fatal.^[4][13]

Word family

• dannosità
• dannosamente

Related words

• danno
• dannare
• Latin damnum

Usage notes

In law an eredità dannosa is an inheritance whose debts exceed its assets.^[12][2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 19, 61
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
9. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 15
10. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse