duolo

Forms

duolo m (plural duoli)^[1] The old and Tuscan form is dolo.^[2][3][4] Old Italian also has duol, dol and dor.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin dolus (“pain, grief”).^[6][7][8][1] DELI and GRADIT take it as probably drawn from Latin doleō (“to feel pain”), while Nocentini calls it a variant of dolor (“pain”).^[6][8][7]

The DÉRom reconstructs a Proto-Romance neuter noun for physical and mental pain, mourning, its outward signs, and compassion, with cognates in every branch except Vegliote and Romansh.^[9] The written Latin record is late: the masculine noun means mental pain from Commodian (3rd century) and physical pain from Pelagius (4th century), and a neuter dolum occurs once in the 6th century.^[9] The DÉRom adds that speakers will have felt the noun as belonging to the verb, without that link being necessarily its etymology.^[9] The same word is French deuil (“mourning”), Occitan dol, Catalan dol, Spanish duelo (“grief”), Portuguese dó and Romanian dor (“longing”).^[7][10]

Classical dolus (“guile, deceit”) has a separate history; de Vaan thinks it may nevertheless go back to Proto-Indo-European *dolh₁-o- (“pain”), given the Latin verb and noun for pain.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Cremonese poems of Uguccione da Lodi, early in the 13th century, in the sense of physical suffering.^[5] The noun is attested indirectly even earlier, in the place name ⟨Miralduolo⟩ in a Latin charter of 1178 from the territory of Siena.^[5] DELI's first example is in Bono Giamboni (1292).^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian duolo covered pain of the body (illness, childbirth, fatigue) and of the mind, the rage that pain brings, and the lament, especially for the dead;^[5] morire di duolo was to die of grief.^[5] The poets favoured it: Dante writes Chi ama, se non è amato, lo maggior dol porta (“Whoever loves and is not loved bears the greatest pain”), and Petrarch perché cantando il duol si disacerba (“because in singing, grief grows less bitter”).^[12][4] A Tuscan proverb says Chi disse figliuoli disse duoli (“Who said children said sorrows”).^[13]

Tommaseo noted that in Tuscany the word was used more for the body than for the mind, and the form dolo still means physical pain in popular Tuscan.^[13][4] In the standard language duolo is now literary; mourning dress was once abito di duolo.^[8][14]

Timeline

• 1178 – The place name ⟨Miralduolo⟩ appears in a Latin charter from the territory of Siena.^[5]
• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses the word.^[5]
• 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses duolo for pain.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) grief, pain, especially of the mind: Nel suo duolo non trovava conforto.^[8][2][15]
2. (literary) A cry of pain, a lament.^[8][15][3]
3. (regional, Tuscany) Physical pain.^[8][2]
4. (obsolete) Mourning: abito di duolo, mourning dress.^[14][8]

Related words

• dolore
• dolere
• Latin dolor
• French deuil
• Spanish duelo

Usage notes

DEI lists a separate Old Lucchese duolo “debt” (13th century), a semi-learned form of Latin dolus (“deceit”).^[16][10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
4. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1402