dodici

Forms

dodici (invariable)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian dodeci, Old Italian dodece and northern Old Italian dodexe and Old Italian doze.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin duodecim (“twelve”), a compound of duo (“two”) and decem (“ten”).^[4][5][6][1] The Romance forms point to a Latin pronunciation with the stress on the first ⟨o⟩, which Italian keeps.^[7][7]

The same Latin word gave French douze, Occitan dotze, Catalan dotze, Spanish doce and Portuguese doze;^[5][8] it lives on in almost every Romance language but not in Romanian, and in Sardinian doigi and Friulian dodis.^[7][8] The Latin numeral has an exact match in Ancient Greek δώδεκα (dṓdeka), and both go back to an Indo-European compound of “two” and “ten”.^[9]

The noun dozzina “dozen” is not an Italian formation from the numeral: it was taken from French douzaine, a French derivative of the numeral.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Florentine bankers' account book of 1211, where the word is the plain number twelve.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the number could also stand loosely for a small or for a large quantity, and as a plural noun i Dodici named several city magistracies of twelve members, at Florence, Siena, Pisa, Milan and Venice.^[2][7] In 1321 Florence set up the Dodici buoni uomini, an extraordinary board of twelve citizens; the Venetian collegio dei Dodici lasted from 1548 to 1780.^[2][10] Dante counts the twelve parts of a degree of the starry heaven in the Vita Nuova, and Machiavelli uses the number for “a great many”.^[3][11]

The derivative dodicesimo “twelfth” dates from about 1300, and the fraction sense “a twelfth part” from before 1597.^[4] Dodicenne “twelve years old” is recorded from 1859 and continues Late Latin duodecennis.^[4][5] An old Florentine dodicino was a coin worth twelve denari (1363).^[7] In modern use dodici also names noon or midnight (le dodici), the twelfth day of a month or year of a century, and in the football pools fare dodici means guessing twelve results, the second prize after tredici.^[6][12][13]

Timeline

• 1211 – A Florentine bankers' book has the first record of dodici.^[4][2]
• Before 1292 – The old variant dodeci is recorded.^[6]
• About 1300 – Dodicesimo “twelfth” is first recorded.^[4]
• 1321 – Florence creates the Dodici buoni uomini.^[2]
• 1363 – Dodicino is recorded as the name of a Florentine coin of twelve denari.^[7]
• 1548–1780 – The Venetian collegio dei Dodici is in office.^[10]
• 1859 – Dodicenne “twelve years old” is first recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Numeral

1. twelve: ten plus two, written 12 or XII: Il mese ha dodici giorni di ferie.^[6][12][11]
2. After a noun, with ordinal value: twelfth: il capitolo dodici.^[6][12]

Noun

1. The number twelve and the sign for it.^[6][13]
2. The twelfth day of a month, or the twelfth year of a century: è nato nel dodici.^[6][13]
3. (in the plural, le dodici) noon; less often midnight.^[6][11]
4. (games) In the football pools and similar games, the result of twelve correct guesses and the prize for it: fare dodici.^[6][12][14]
5. (history, in the plural) Name of old magistracies of twelve members.^[12][10]

Word family

• dodicesimo
• dodicenne
• dodicina

Related words

• due
• dieci
• dozzina
• Latin duodecim
• French douze

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1371
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse