dollaro

Forms

dollaro m (plural dollari)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English dollar, first recorded in Italian in 1783.^[2][3][4][1] The English word, recorded from 1560, is an adaptation of Low German daler, the same coin name as German Taler.^[2][5][6] The German name is short for Joachimsthaler, a coin of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, whose silver was used for the first such coins.^[7][5]

Italian took the German word directly as well, as tallero.^[2][3][8] GRADIT records the first Italian form as ⟨dolars⟩, and the American sense from 1785.^[4] French had taken the English word a few years earlier, in 1778.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the newspaper Notizie del mondo in 1783, for the monetary unit of the United States and other countries.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Before the English word arrived, Giovanni Battista Ramusio had written dolar for the thaler at the end of the 16th century.^[5] The modern word spread with accounts of the new American republic: Carlo Botta's history of the American war uses it, and Zaccaria still listed it as a neologism in 1901.^[8][6] Tommaseo defined it as a gold coin of the United States.^[9]

In the 19th century the word was extended to the currencies of other countries, and GDLI quotes Melchiorre Gioia on rewards in dollars offered by Venezuela in 1818.^[6] In colloquial use the plural can mean money in general,^[10][4] and in nuclear physics the dollar is a unit of a reactor's reactivity.^[4][11]

Timeline

• Late 16th century – Ramusio writes dolar for the thaler.^[5]
• 1778 – French takes the English word.^[5][6]
• 1783 – Dollaro first appears in Italian, in Notizie del mondo.^[2][4]
• 1785 – The American sense is recorded.^[4]
• 1792 – The dollar becomes the currency of the United States.^[5]
• 1901 – Zaccaria lists the word as a neologism.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The dollar, the monetary unit of the United States, divided into a hundred cents; also the unit of Canada, Australia and other countries.^[4][10][11]
2. (colloquial, chiefly plural) money: Con quell'affare ha fatto parecchi dollari.^[10][4]
3. (physics) A unit of the reactivity of a nuclear reactor.^[4][11]

Word family

• dollarizzare
• superdollaro
• dollarone

Related words

• tallero
• English dollar

Usage notes

The symbol is $.^[12] The augmentative dollarone is used colloquially.^[12] Treccani records area del dollaro, the countries whose international trade is settled in dollars.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1376
6. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
8. ^ a b c Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli