diramare

Forms

diramare (first-person singular present diràmo, first-person singular past historic diramài, past participle diramàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The TLIO and the LEI record Old Italian deramare beside diramare.^[2][3]

Etymology

DELI, Nocentini and GRADIT see a parasynthetic formation from Italian di- + ramo + -are: “to strip of branches”.^[4][5][6] The DEI, the GDLI and the TLIO trace it instead to Late Latin dērāmāre, recorded in Jerome, and the LEI treats the Italian word as its continuation.^[7][8][2][3] Prati has a Vulgar Latin *deramare.^[9]

The Late Latin verb survives in Romanian dărâma, in the Dalmatian word for “to slaughter”, in Engadine diramar (“to branch out”), in Old French deramer and in Old Occitan deramar.^[3][10][1] Latin rāmus (“branch”) may come from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“root”), and be related to Latin rādīx.^[11][1]

DELI, following Lurati, thinks that the verb in the chancery sense “to send out (an official notice)” has another origin, probably Spanish derramar “to spill, spread”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in a statute of the Chiarentana, in Umbria (1314–1316), in the sense “to strip a plant of its branches”.^[2][3] Dante uses the reflexive in the sense “to descend, derive from”.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for lopping or pruning a plant, and figuratively for maiming a person.^[2] Leone Ebreo (before 1535) has the reflexive for dividing into two or more branches, and Daniello Bartoli (before 1685) the transitive “to divide into branches”, of roots spread wide.^[4][8] The noun diramazione follows in 1681, and before 1729 Salvini uses it for a branch of a river.^[4]

The sense “to spread among many people” is recorded in 1796, in a collection of orders and notices.^[4] Tommaseo still condemned diramare un ordine as improper and needless, but this is now the main sense of the transitive verb, while pruning has become uncommon.^[12][6][13] The reflexive is used of rivers, roads, railway lines and veins that divide into branches.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1314–1316 – A statute of the Chiarentana uses the verb for stripping branches.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses diramarsi for “to descend, derive”.^[4]
• Before 1535 – Leone Ebreo uses the reflexive for dividing into branches.^[4]
• 1681 – Diramazione is recorded in Filippo Baldinucci.^[4]
• Before 1685 – Daniello Bartoli uses the verb for dividing into branches.^[4]
• 1796 – The verb is used for spreading a notice among many people.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To send out a notice, order or announcement to many recipients at once; to issue or circulate: la prefettura ha diramato un avviso di allerta meteo.^[6][13][14]
2. (transitive, uncommon) To prune a plant, removing some or all of its branches.^[6][13][14]
3. (transitive, archaic) To divide into branches; to distribute water into channels.^[6][15]
4. (pronominal, diramarsi) To branch out or divide, of plants, rivers, roads, railway lines or veins: dal paese si diramano tre sentieri.^[13][14][16]
5. (pronominal, figurative) Of news, to spread.^[13][14][15]

Word family

• diramazione
• diramatore
• diramatura

Related words

• ramo
• ramificare
• Latin rāmus

Usage notes

A separate diramare, a chemical term of the 19th century meaning “to strip a surface of its copper coating”, is formed from rame.^[7][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 1301
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1318
8. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 380
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana