digiuno

Forms

digiuno m (plural digiuni)^[1] Old Italian forms include degiuno, degionio, deiuno and northern dezuno, zezunio and zazun.^[2][3] The noun once had a feminine plural, le digiuna or le digiune.^[4][5]

Etymology

The adjective is inherited from Latin iēiūnus (“fasting, hungry”).^[3][6][7][1] The initial ⟨d-⟩ comes from dissimilation of an older Old Italian *gigiuno.^[6][7][8] Pisani doubted Rohlfs's view that the Latin prefix dē- is involved, though he allowed that it may have helped fix the consonant.^[3]

The noun “fast” is from Italian digiunare, a deverbal noun from the verb, which comes from Late Latin ieiunāre.^[3][7][4][9] Some dictionaries derive it instead from Latin iēiūnium (“fasting”), and Wiktionary from a Vulgar Latin derivative of that word.^[10][1] DEI holds that iēiūnium survives only in Campidanese giaùngiu and in semi-learned forms such as Old Venetian zezùnio and Catalan dejuni, and the TLIO allows that the Old Italian dezunio type may be such a form.^[11][2]

The adjective is found across the Romance languages: French jeun, Occitan jejun, Catalan dejú, Spanish ayuno, Portuguese jejum, Sardinian deiunu and Aromanian adzun.^[6][12] The verb ieiūnō gave Romanian ajuna, with ajun “eve of a great church feast”.^[12]

Latin iēiūnus had an older form iaiūnus in Plautus.^[13][14] It is related to ientō (“to have breakfast”) but has no clear cognates outside Latin.^[6][13] Forssman, followed by de Vaan, derives it from Proto-Italic *jagjūnos and the root Proto-Indo-European *Hieh₂ǵ- (“to sacrifice”), which he compares with Ancient Greek ἅζομαι (házomai, “to revere”), on the view that the first sacrifice of the day was made on an empty stomach.^[13][1] The OLD gives its origin as unknown.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun “fast” is first recorded in the Umbrian confession formula of Norcia (1065).^[2] Faba uses degionio before 1243.^[3][7] The adjective appears around 1260 in the Cortona laude as degiuno “lacking”, in the Bolognese Memoriali in 1282, and as “not having eaten” in Giamboni before 1292.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The adjective first meant “without food”, of a person who had not eaten for some time, and in Old Italian also “starving”, of soil and plants “lean, dry”, “eager for something”, “lacking” and “without knowledge or experience of something”.^[2] The last sense survives in essere digiuno di “to know nothing about”.^[7][10]

The noun named fasting as a religious or medical practice.^[9][10] In the Church it was also the precept to fast on fixed days, and capo del digiuno (Latin caput ieiunii) was an old name for Ash Wednesday.^[9][7] Rompere il digiuno first meant eating forbidden food on a fast day and then simply breaking one's fast.^[9][4] Dante (before 1321) uses the noun for an unsatisfied longing, and Petrarch for an intense desire, a literary sense.^[3][7] Modern figurative uses are a long deprivation of something wanted, in sport a run without goals or wins, and in jest sexual abstinence.^[7][8]

Timeline

• 1065 – The noun appears in the Umbrian confession formula of Norcia.^[2]
• Late 12th century – The verb appears as deiunare in the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio.^[3]
• Before 1243 – Faba writes degionio “fast”.^[3][7]
• About 1260 – The adjective degiuno “lacking” appears in the Cortona laude.^[3][7]
• 1282 – The adjective is recorded in the Bolognese Memoriali.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses digiuno both as adjective and noun.^[3]
• 1304 – Digiunatore “one who fasts” is recorded in Giordano da Pisa.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses the noun for a longing.^[3]
• 15th century – The anatomical sense appears in Mondino de' Liucci.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fast: total or partial abstention from food for a time, for religious, medical or political reasons: Ha iniziato un digiuno di protesta.^[7][10][8]
2. The Church's precept to fast on fixed days, and such a day itself: digiuno eucaristico is abstaining from food and drink before Communion.^[7][9]
3. (figurative) A long deprivation of something wanted: un digiuno d'affetto durato anni.^[7][10][4]
4. (sports) A run without a result: un digiuno di vittorie.^[7]
5. (humorous) Sexual abstinence.^[7][8]
6. (literary) An intense longing.^[7][10]

Adjective

1. Having eaten nothing for some time, or not yet that day: Sono ancora digiuno dalla sera prima.^[7][10][8]
2. Empty of food: stomaco digiuno.^[7][10]
3. (figurative) Ignorant, without knowledge (with di): Era digiuna di chimica.^[7][10][8]
4. (figurative) Lacking, deprived: Siamo digiuni di aggiornamenti.^[7][4]
5. (literary) Eager, longing.^[7][4]

Word family

• digiunare
• digiunatore
• sdigiunare
• predigiuno

Related words

• Latin iēiūnus
• French jeun

Usage notes

A digiuno means “on an empty stomach”, as in taking a medicine before breakfast.^[9][15] The anatomical digiuno or intestino digiuno, the jejunum between the duodenum and the ileum, is the Latin iēiūnum (intestinum), called so because it is nearly always found empty; the TLIO's first record is the Florentine translation of the Almansore of the early 14th century.^[11][2][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 412
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1300
12. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli