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donna

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Etymology and origin of the Italian word donna

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
12th century, Corsican document
Inherited from
Latin domna
Ultimate origin
Latin domus

Pronunciation

Forms

donna f (plural donne)[1] Old forms include Old Italian domna, Old Italian donpna, Old Italian dopna, Old Italian dona and Old Italian dunna.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin domna, the syncopated form of Latin domina (“lady, mistress of the house”), the feminine of dominus (“master”), from domus (“house”).[3][4][5][1] The short form is already found in Plautus and in inscriptions.[6][7] Devoto explains the Italian form by the regular loss of the unstressed inner vowel and the assimilation of ⟨mn⟩ to ⟨nn⟩.[8] The word is pan-Romance: French dame, Old Occitan domna, Catalan dona, Spanish dueña and doña, Portuguese dona, Sardinian domina and Romanian doamnă.[4][9] Italian dama is a loan of the French form.[9][1]

The masculine noun probably meant simply “he of the house”.[10] Cassiodorus already uses the short form as a title of honour in 519, for Queen Amalasuntha.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Corsican document of the 12th century.[2] In the early 13th century Giacomino Pugliese uses donna for “lady, mistress”, the Latin sense.[3] The general sense “woman” is in Guittone d'Arezzo, who died in 1294.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian donna was first a word of rank: a lady of high standing, the Virgin Mary, a woman who rules over a place or over her lover, and even a city that dominates others.[2] The everyday word for a female person was femmina.[3] Bonfante showed that only in Tuscany, around 1300, did donna begin to replace femmina in this sense, under the influence of the Dolce Stil Novo, whose poets exalted the beloved lady; the change then spread beyond Tuscany, and femmina was pushed towards a purely sexual and later disparaging sense.[3] The South belongs to the area that kept the Latin word for “female”, like French femme.[11] Nocentini notes that, as in Catalan, the word lost its sense of excellence except in titles.[4]

As a title before the names of noblewomen and ladies of standing it is in Dante; it survives in the South and in the aristocracy.[3][11] Donna for a domestic servant, short for donna di servizio, is recorded before 1340.[3][11] In card games it names the queen (1887), and in chess the queen as well.[3][1]

English borrowed donna as a title (1670) and German in 1728.[12] Derivatives include donnesco (1353, Boccaccio), donnaccia (before 1584), donnaiolo (before 1735) and donnina allegra (1905).[3]

Timeline

  • 519 – Cassiodorus uses Latin domna as a title of honour.[11]
  • 12th century – Donna appears in a Corsican document.[2]
  • Early 13th century – Giacomino Pugliese uses it for “lady, mistress”.[3]
  • Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for “woman”.[3]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses it as a title for noblewomen.[3]
  • Before 1340 – Donna for a domestic servant is recorded.[3][12]
  • 1353 – Boccaccio uses the adjective donnesco.[3]
  • 1670 – English borrows donna as a title.[12]
  • 1887 – The card donna, the queen, is recorded.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. woman, an adult female human being: una donna anziana, diventare donna, to reach puberty.[5][13][14]
  2. Women in general: il ruolo della donna nella società.[5]
  3. Wife, partner, the woman one loves, usually with a possessive.[5][14][15]
  4. (colloquial) A domestic help, a cleaning woman.[5][15]
  5. (literary) lady, mistress; the woman who rules a man's heart.[5][14]
  6. A title before the first name of a noblewoman or lady of standing.[5][3]
  7. (card games, chess) The queen.[3][1][16]

Word family

  • donnaccia
  • donnaiolo
  • donnesco
  • donnina
  • donnetta
  • donnicciola
  • donnone
  • primadonna
  • gentildonna

Usage notes

Prima donna or primadonna is the leading actress or singer, and fare la prima donna means to want to be the centre of attention, also of men.[15][17] The proverb donne e buoi dei paesi tuoi advises choosing a wife from one's own place.[15] Tommaseo records a fish called pesce donna, whose bones were believed to stop bleeding.[18][11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  6. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 4, 947
  7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 153
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1381
  12. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  13. ^ 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  15. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  16. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
  17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  18. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET

Related etymologies

  • no · also from Latin
  • cosa · also from Latin
  • a · also from Latin
  • mio · also from Latin
  • uno · also from Latin
  • si · also from Latin
  • sapere · also from Latin
  • fare · also from Latin
Cite this entry

“Donna.” Etymologically, 21 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/it/donna. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.

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