dettato

Forms

dettato m (plural dettati)^[1] The old form is Old Italian dittato.^[2][3][4] Other old forms include Old Italian dictato and Old Italian ditado.^[5]

Etymology

It is from Italian dettare (“to dictate”): the noun use of its past participle.^{[6][2][3][4][7]} In the older senses “style” and “maxim” it continues Latin dictātum, the neuter of the past participle of dictō (“to say repeatedly; dictate”), used mostly in the plural dictāta for dictated lessons and precepts.^{[8][9][10][11]} The Latin verb is the frequentative of dīcō (“to say”).^[12][8]

The Latin noun also gave Old French ditié “poem”, Old Occitan dechat, Spanish dechado “model, pattern” and Portuguese ditado “proverb”.^[9][13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bonagiunta Orbicciani of Lucca, of the mid-13th century (before 1257 in DELI), with the sense of a composition or the way something is written, its language and style.^[12][5][9]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio (1354–1355) used it for the subject or content of a work, and San Bernardino (1427) for a saying or proverb, a sense literary Italian kept into the 20th century.^[9] Tommaseo distinguished the dettato, closer to a moral maxim, from the more popular proverbio.^[15] From 1663, in D. Bartoli, it also means a principle or precept, and in law what a rule lays down, as in il dettato della legge.^[9][4]

The sense “text written from dictation” is found in a Bolognese text of 1328 and in Marino (1623), and Dossi used it in 1870 for the school exercise.^[9][12] In music teaching, dettato musicale is the exercise of writing down a melody that is played or sung.^[4][16]

Timeline

• Before 1257 – Bonagiunta uses dettato for style or composition.^[12]
• 1328 – A Bolognese text uses it for a text written from dictation.^[9]
• 1354–1355 – Boccaccio uses it for the content of a work.^[9]
• 1427 – San Bernardino uses it for a proverb.^[9]
• 1663 – D. Bartoli uses it for a precept.^[9]
• 1870 – Dossi uses it for the school dictation.^[12]
• Before 1952 – Dettato is used as a rendering of German Diktat.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. dictation: the school exercise of writing down a text read aloud, and the text so written: Oggi la maestra ci ha dato un dettato difficile.^{[16][2][3][17]}
2. (literary) Style, the manner of writing as to language and form.^{[16][2][3][17]}
3. (literary) A suggestion or prompting: per dettato divino.^[16][4]
4. A precept or rule, and what a law or regulation lays down: il dettato della legge.^{[16][2][3][4]}
5. (literary) A proverb, maxim.^{[16][2][17][4]}

Related words

• dettare
• dettame
• dettatura
• detto
• diktat

Usage notes

Dettato is also the past participle of dettare, “dictated”.^[16][17] GRADIT lists a separate, rare dettato for a diktat, from German Diktat (before 1952), and Croce wrote of Italy ratifying il dettato di pace, the imposed peace treaty.^[16][10][4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 20, 316
10. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli