disceverare

Forms

disceverare (first-person singular present discévero or discèvero, first-person singular past historic disceverài, past participle disceveràto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Northern forms in the TLIO include Old Italian desevrar and Old Italian desevrare.^[2]

Etymology

Most dictionaries see it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *dissēperāre (“to separate”), formed from dis- and *sēperāre, a variant of Latin sēparō (“to separate”).^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][1]} Devoto–Oli and the TLIO instead see it as formed from Italian dis- + sceverare.^[9][2] DEI considers it a loan from northern Italian or from Old French dessevrer.^[10] Devoto explains the ⟨v⟩ for Latin /p/ as northern lenition, and adds that the word was later influenced by the simple verb.^[11]

The same Latin verb gave the Old French verb, Old Occitan desebrar and Logudorese seberare.^[8][10] Wiktionary adds Old Spanish dessebrar and Asturian dixebrar.^[1] The classical verb is formed from sē- (“apart”) and parō (“to arrange”).^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates it before 1292, and GRADIT to the second half of the 13th century in the old form discevrare.^[5][3] The TLIO's first record is the Milanese poet Bonvesin da la Riva, in the last decade of the 13th century, in the sense to separate one thing from another.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used it figuratively for ending a bond, for making things differ, for splitting something open and for breaking the ranks of an army.^[2] The Italian Tesoro of Brunetto Latini quotes Seneca saying that loyalty and truth set a man apart from the servant.^[13]

Tommaseo already marked the word as obsolete.^[13] Today it is uncommon, a less frequent form of sceverare for telling one thing from another.^[3][6][4]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Zingarelli's first date for the verb.^[5]
• Last decade of the 13th century – Bonvesin da la Riva uses it in Milanese.^[2]
• 14th century – DEI dates disceveramento and disceveranza.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, uncommon) To separate or distinguish one thing from another: disceverare il grano dalla pula.^[3][9][4]

Word family

• disceveramento
• disceveranza

Related words

• sceverare
• separare
• scevro

Usage notes

The contracted form discevrare is old.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b 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 c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1328
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET