delinquente

Forms

delinquente m or f by sense (plural delinquenti)^[1] Early forms also include Old Italian deliquenti and dilinquente.^[2] Regional forms include Roman dilinquente (Belli, 1835) and Neapolitan delenguente (1699).^[3]

Etymology

It is a learned word: it is borrowed from Late Latin dēlinquēns (“offender”), the present participle of dēlinquō (“to fail in one's duty; to do wrong”).^[3][1][4] The Italian dictionaries treat it as the present participle of delinquere, used as a noun.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} As a noun the Latin participle belongs to the language of law in Late Latin; the Thesaurus records it in Victor of Vita in the 5th century.^[3]

The same legal word is Romansh delinquent, French délinquant (earlier Middle French delinquant, 1375), Old Occitan delinquentz, Catalan delinqüent, Spanish delincuente and Portuguese delinquente.^[3] The verb is from Latin dē- + linquō (“to leave”): it first meant “to leave undone, be lacking”, and then “to commit a fault”.^[5][10][1] De Vaan derives the simple verb from the Proto-Indo-European *leykʷ- (“to leave”) root, with a nasal present, the same as Ancient Greek λείπω (leípō, “to leave”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a statute of the Sienese hospital of Santa Maria (1305), where delinquente stands beside peccatore: a sinner, one who does wrong.^[3][2] DELI dates the noun “one who has committed unlawful or wicked acts” to the chapters of the Compagnia di Orsanmichele in Florence, of the 13th or 14th century.^[5] In the 14th-century statutes of Siena, Pisa, Perugia and Florence it means one who breaks the law or a statute.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was legal and religious at once: one who broke the rules of a statute, and a sinner.^[2] Tommaseo still noted that it could carry a religious or moral sense of guilt.^[11]

The criminal law of the 18th century gave delinquente abituale (1731), and the positivist criminology of Cesare Lombroso delinquente nato (1884), the born criminal, which DELI says passed into common speech for a person wicked by nature.^[5][12] The weakened sense “a dishonest, base person” is recorded in Gozzano and Svevo in the early 20th century, and in joking use the word means a little rascal.^[5][12][8] As an adjective “guilty” it is literary.^[13][12]

Timeline

• 1305 – A statute of the hospital of Santa Maria in Siena uses delinquente.^[3][2]
• 1309–1310 – The Sienese Costituto uses the word in law.^[3]
• 1363 – A Florentine translation of Marsilius of Padua uses delinquente.^[3]
• 1731 – Pasqualigo writes of the delinquente abituale.^[5]
• 1884 – Lombroso's L'uomo delinquente brings in delinquente nato.^[5]
• Before 1916 – Gozzano uses the word for a dishonest person.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) A person who has committed an act the law treats as a crime; generally, a criminal or delinquent: delinquente abituale (habitual offender), delinquente professionale (career criminal).^{[12][7][8][13][14]}
2. A wicked or dishonest person, a scoundrel: Ha proprio una faccia da delinquente.^{[12][7][8][14][1]}
3. (humorous) A rascal, a naughty child: Che hai combinato, piccolo delinquente?^[12][7][13]

Adjective

1. (literary) Guilty; who has committed a crime.^[12][13][15]

Word family

• delinquentello
• delinquentaccio

Related words

• delinquere
• delinquenza
• delitto
• Latin dēlinquō

Usage notes

Delinquente nato was Lombroso's term for a person driven to crime by an inborn disposition; the theory is now abandoned, and the phrase lives on for someone hopelessly bad.^[5][13][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli