diciassette

Forms

diciassette (invariable)^[2] Old forms include Old Italian dicesette, Old Italian dicisette, Old Italian diciessette, Old Italian diecisette and the northern Old Italian dexesete.^[3][4][5] Bembo and Varchi still wrote diciasette with a single ⟨s⟩.^[6][7]

Etymology

Nocentini explains it as a compound: it is from Italian dieci (“ten”) + e (“and”) + sette (“seven”), through an earlier Old Italian diciessette, a phrase that replaced Latin septemdecim (“seventeen”).^[8][9] Most dictionaries trace it instead to a spoken phrase Latin decem (“ten”) ac (“and”) septem (“seven”), which would explain the ⟨a⟩.^{[2][5][10][11][6][1]} The LEI notes that both kinds of compound were already Latin, joined by a conjunction in Caesar and Livy's ten-and-eight for eighteen or set side by side in Tacitus' ten-nine for nineteen;^[12] Rohlfs held that Italian dialects joined the numbers sometimes with one conjunction and sometimes with the other, Schmid doubted the formation with the second, and Salvioni explained the ⟨a⟩ of this word and of diciannove by the influence of trenta.^[12]

The first element is not dieci but the ⟨-dici⟩ of undici and quindici, from Latin -decim, which also forms diciotto.^[12] Devoto explained the /i/ as the regular raising of a pretonic /e/.^[13] The Venetian form is dixisete.^[1]

Latin decem continues Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥ (“ten”), and septem continues Proto-Indo-European *septḿ̥ (“seven”).^[14][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Sienese accounts of Mattasalà (1233–1243), with the cardinal sense “ten plus seven”.^[3] DELI dates the Florentine dicesette to 1259 and finds the spelling with ⟨a⟩, dicias(s)ette, only from 1374.^[15]

Semantic evolution

The old forms with ⟨e⟩ stayed long in literature: Petrarch begins a sonnet Dicesette anni ha già rivolto il cielo (“The heavens have already turned for seventeen years”), and Dino Compagni tells of a secret council of diciassette cittadini.^[16] GRADIT and Nocentini date the word to the 13th century, Zingarelli to 1243.^[2][8][5]

As a noun the number names a day of the month, a year of a century (il diciassette, 1917, the year of the Russian revolution), five in the afternoon (le diciassette) and, at university, a mark one point short of a pass.^[2][9][17] Popular superstition counts seventeen as unlucky, above all on a Friday.^[11][5]

Timeline

• 1233–1243 – The Sienese accounts of Mattasalà have the number.^[3]
• 1259 – Dicesette is recorded in a Florentine text.^[15][2]
• 1374 – The form with ⟨a⟩, diciasette, first appears.^[15]
• 17th century – Diciassettesimo “seventeenth” is recorded.^[6]
• 20th century – Diciassettenne “seventeen-year-old” is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Numeral

1. seventeen: ten plus seven (17, XVII): Abbiamo aspettato diciassette minuti.^[2][9][5]
2. After a noun, seventeenth: l'articolo diciassette.^[2][9][18]

Noun

1. The number seventeen, and the figure that stands for it.^[2][9][17]
2. The seventeenth day of a month; the year '17 of a century, especially 1917: la rivoluzione del diciassette.^[2][9][17]
3. (feminine plural) le diciassette: five o'clock in the afternoon.^[2][17][5]
4. A university mark one point below the pass mark.^[9][10]

Word family

• diciassettesimo
• diciassettenne

Related words

• dieci
• sette
• Latin septemdecim

Usage notes

Venerdì diciassette, Friday the seventeenth, is the unlucky day of Italian superstition, as Friday the thirteenth is in English-speaking countries.^[2][9][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1289
7. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b 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 Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 19, 482
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 139
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 356
17. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli