disperare

Forms

disperare (first-person singular present dispèro, first-person singular past historic disperài, past participle disperàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old form Old Italian desperare was common in Old Italian, and Venetian had Old Italian desperar.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin dēspērō (“to give up hope”), with its derivatives dēspērātus and dēspērātiō behind disperato and disperazione.^[6][7][5][8] Wiktionary calls the verb inherited, and REW lists it among the outcomes of the Latin verb.^[1][9] That verb is formed from Latin dē- + spērō (“to hope”), with the prefix expressing removal.^[6][10][11]

The Latin word was taken over in the same way as Romansh disperar, Old French desperer (in Anglo-Norman), Old Occitan desperar and Spanish desperar.^[5] French désespérer, Spanish desesperar and Portuguese desesperar are new formations with another prefix, and REW thinks the Italian verb could be one too.^[12][9][13]

spērō is a verb formed from spēs (“hope”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *speh₁- (“to prosper, be satiated”), the root of Lithuanian spėti (“to be in time”) and Old English spōwan (“to prosper”).^[14][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Cremonese Uguccione da Lodi, early in the 13th century, with the sense of expecting nothing good from one's present state.^[4] DELI dates the reflexive disperarsi, “to give way to despair”, to Rinaldo d'Aquino in the early 13th century, and the verb “to stop hoping to obtain something” to Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250: ch'eo non desperi amando (“that I may not despair in loving”).^[6][15]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian added religious and military senses: to lose trust in God's mercy, and to consider defeat certain.^[4] Before 1249 Pier della Vigna used it transitively, “to drive someone to despair”, a sense still found in Castiglione and Bontempelli.^[5] Dante uses it with an object in the Purgatorio: the Pierides sentiro / lo colpo tal, che disperar perdono (“felt such a blow that they despaired of pardon”).^[8][15]

In love poetry the verb named the lover's extreme suffering.^[4] The participle disperato meant “hopeless” in Malispini and “in despair” in Giamboni, and disperazione is first recorded in Giamboni too; from about 1580 it could also mean a person or thing that drives one to despair.^[6] DEI notes disperata for disperazione in Alfieri and in Tuscan, and Devoto names disperata as a kind of popular poem.^[12][10] The phrase far disperare “to drive to distraction” is now often a hyperbole for trying someone's patience.^[3][16]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi (Cremona) uses the verb.^[4]
• Early 13th century – Rinaldo d'Aquino has the reflexive “to give way to despair”.^[6]
• Before 1249 – Pier della Vigna uses it for “to drive to despair”.^[5]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses it for “to lose hope”.^[6][15]
• Before 1292 – Disperazione is first recorded, in Giamboni.^[6]
• 1313–1315 – Venetian desperar appears in Paolino Minorita.^[5]
• 1492 – Spanish desperar is recorded in Nebrija.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To no longer hope for something, to despair of achieving it (with di and the infinitive or che and the subjunctive): Ormai disperavano di trovare un taxi.^{[8][16][2][1]}
2. (literary) With a direct object, to give up hope of something.^[16][2][8]
3. Intransitive, to lose all hope in or of something, or to lose heart altogether: Nessuno disperava della vittoria.^[16][2][3]
4. (literary) To drive someone to despair.^[2][11][17]
5. disperarsi: to give way to despair, to be distraught: Si disperava per il treno perduto.^{[16][11][2][3]}

Word family

• disperato
• disperazione
• disperante
• disperabile
• disperanza
• disperamento
• dispero

Related words

• sperare
• speranza
• Latin spēs
• French désespérer

Usage notes

Far disperare qualcuno means to drive someone to despair, and more often to try their patience, to torment them.^[2][3][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ 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)
4. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
5. ^ a b c d e f g Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 19, 1496
6. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1347
13. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
16. ^ 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
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli