dileguare

Forms

dileguare (first-person singular present dilèguo or (traditional) diléguo, first-person singular past historic dileguài, past participle dileguàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dēliquāre, a compound of the prefix dē- and liquāre (“to make liquid, to melt”).^[2][3][4][1] DELI and Sabatini–Coletti gloss the Latin verb “to liquefy completely”, with an intensive dē-.^[2][4] Nocentini and GRADIT gloss it “to pour off, decant”.^[3][5] In classical Latin it meant “to strain (a liquid) clear”.^[6] The LEI treats the Italian verb as inherited, with the Latin sense “to liquefy; to destroy completely” and the new Italo-Romance senses “to vanish” and “to fall into ruin”.^[7]

Liquāre is a factitive formed beside liqueō (“to be liquid, to be clear”).^[8][9] De Vaan traces this family to a Proto-Italic stem meaning “to make or become liquid”, and, with a question mark, to Proto-Indo-European *u̯leikʷ- (“to make moist”), comparing Old Irish fliuch (“moist”) and Welsh gwlith (“dew”).^[8]

The /k/ of the Latin ⟨qu⟩ was voiced to /ɡ/ between vowels, as in seguire from sequor.^[9] Sabatini–Coletti takes this voicing as a sign that the word spread through the northern dialects, where the verb is well represented.^[4][10] There the derived noun (Lombard delég and the like) means “lard” or “gravy from a roast”.^[10][11][7] Old Venetian also had desleguar, with the prefix changed to ⟨des-⟩, like Old Occitan deslegar.^[10][11][12] For the northern forms with ⟨n⟩ such as delenguare, the TLIO mentions a possible crossing with dēlinquō (“to fail, to be wanting”).^[13][7] Meyer-Lübke doubted that French délayer belongs here.^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, of the last quarter of the 12th century.^[13] Its first group of senses is physical: to warm something until it melts, said mostly of snow, and to melt a metal.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb covered melting, dissolving substances to make medicines, and grinding to powder.^[13] These senses led to reducing to nothing, killing, and making something fade from the senses.^[13] DEI compares the shift from melting to running away with that of squagliarsela.^[10] The reflexive dileguarsi, “to vanish from sight”, is in Dante, who compares sinners slipping away under water to frogs fleeing a snake.^[7][14][15] Boccaccio and later writers use it of people who slip away or run off.^[7][14]

The transitive “to make vanish, to disperse” is recorded before 1367 in Fazio degli Uberti, who says that the diamond dilegua la tempesta (“drives away the storm”).^[2][16] The literal sense of melting lived on in literary Italian: Gemelli Careri used it of metals in 1722, and the LEI cites intransitive dileguare for melting snow from Grazzini (before 1584) to Pavese (1949).^[7] Today the verb means “to dispel” and, more often with si, “to vanish” or “to slip away”.^[5][17]

Timeline

• Last quarter of the 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur give the TLIO's first record.^[13]
• 1288 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[18]
• Early 14th century – The Tuscan Intelligenza uses dileguare for diluting or liquefying.^[7]
• Before 1313 – Dante uses dileguarsi for disappearing from sight.^[7][5]
• 14th century – The noun dileguo is recorded.^[3]
• Before 1367 – Fazio degli Uberti uses the transitive verb for “to make vanish, to disperse”.^[2]
• 1722 – Gemelli Careri uses dileguare for melting metals.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To make vanish, dispel, disperse; also figurative: la brezza dileguò le nuvole.^{[5][17][15][18]}
2. (transitive) To squander: dileguare un patrimonio.^[4]
3. (intransitive, auxiliary essere; also dileguarsi) To vanish, to fade away, especially figuratively: ogni dubbio è dileguato.^{[5][17][18][19]}
4. (dileguarsi) To run off and disappear, to slip away: il borsaiolo si dileguò nella calca.^[17][4][18]
5. (dileguarsi) To pass out of sight: il treno si dileguò oltre la collina.^[17][15]
6. (literary) Of stars, to set; of a sound, to die away in the distance.^[17][15]

Word family

• dileguo
• dileguamento

Related words

• liquido
• liquore
• Latin dēliquō

Usage notes

The first person singular present is dilèguo, traditionally diléguo.^[1][18] In the sense “to vanish” the verb is used either alone with essere or, more often, as dileguarsi.^[15][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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, 861
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1303
11. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
13. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
14. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 435
17. ^ 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
18. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
19. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana