ebreo

Forms

ebreo (feminine ebrea, masculine plural ebrei, feminine plural ebree)^[1] Old Italian forms include hebreo, ebrëo and abreo.^[2] In Trentino and around Venice the form Venetian abreo means “miser”.^[3]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin hebraeus,^[4][5][6] from Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος (Hebraîos).^[4][5][1] The Greek word comes from Aramaic עִבְרַי (ʿiḇray), the Aramaic form of Biblical Hebrew עִבְרִי (ʿiḇrī, “Hebrew”).^[5][7][1]

The Hebrew word is explained in two ways.^[4][6] DELI and Nocentini take it literally as “one who comes from the other side” (of the river), and Zingarelli gives this with a question mark.^[4][5][8] GRADIT, Sabatini–Coletti, Treccani and Devoto derive it instead from the name of Eber, the supposed ancestor of the Hebrews.^{[6][9][7][10]} Battisti and Alessio say it was the name foreigners gave Abraham, as a descendant of Eber.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Storie de Troia e de Roma, a Roman text of 1252–1258, as an adjective for the people of Israel.^[2][4] There the letters are listed by their inventors: Carmentis made the Latin ones, Cadmus the Greek, “and the Hebrew ones Moses” (e le ebree Moises).^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was used for the people of Israel, their faith and their language, and as a noun it could name the Hebrew language itself.^[2] Petrarch writes of Judith ebrea, la saggia, casta e forte.^[12] The learned adjective ebraico appears in the early 14th century and later took over the uses for things and for the language.^[4] Bruno Migliorini described the modern distinction as a grammatical one: ebreo is said of people, ebraico of things, with some hesitation only for groups of people, while israeliano refers only to the state of Israel.^[4]

A pejorative sense “miser, usurer” rests on an old antisemitic stereotype; the dictionaries label it as offensive.^[6][13][7] Battisti and Alessio record it in popular speech,^[11] and Manzoni has Don Rodrigo exclaim Che ebreo! over a costly whim.^[8] The legend of the ebreo errante, the Wandering Jew condemned to walk the earth until the end of the world, appears in literature at the start of the 17th century and spread with Eugène Sue's novel Le Juif errant; in Cecco Angiolieri the phrase stood for extreme old age.^[11]

Timeline

• 1252–1258 – The Storie de Troia e de Roma use ebreo.^[2]
• Early 14th century – Guido da Pisa uses ebraico.^[4]
• Before 1535 – Francesco Berni uses ebraico for the Hebrew language.^[4]
• 1570 – Ebraismo is recorded in Gabriele Fiamma.^[4]
• 1875 – Ebraicista “Hebraist” appears in the Rigutini–Fanfani dictionary.^[4]
• 1911 – Benedetto Croce uses ebraista, perhaps for the first time.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Jew, a member of the Jewish people: Molti ebrei lasciarono la città nel 1938.^[6][13][9]
2. A person who professes Judaism.^[6][7]
3. (offensive, from an antisemitic stereotype) A miser, a usurer.^[6][13][9]

Adjective

1. Jewish, of the Jewish people: una famiglia ebrea.^[6][7][1]
2. Hebrew, said of things or of the language.^[6][14]

Word family

• ebraico
• ebraismo
• ebraista
• ebraicista

Related words

• giudeo
• israelita
• Latin hebraeus

Usage notes

Ebreo is used for people (uno scrittore ebreo) and ebraico for things and for the language (un testo ebraico).^[4] Ebreo errante is also said of a restless person who never stays in one place.^[8][15] Confondere ebrei e samaritani means to lump together things that only look alike.^[15][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
8. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1409
12. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 7
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli