empio

Forms

empio (feminine empia, masculine plural empi, feminine plural empie)^[1] An older form is Old Italian impio, recorded until the modern dictionaries as obsolete.^[2][3][4][5] Old Italian also has enpio and Old Italian empo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin impius (“impious, wicked”), formed from Latin in- + pius (“dutiful, devout”) with the negative prefix.^{[6][7][8][1][9]} The noun empietà is from Latin impietās.^[6][7]

GRADIT and Treccani gloss the Latin base as “pious” and the prefix as privative, and DELI gives the prefix an adversative value.^[8][10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, of the last quarter of the 12th century.^[2] DELI's first date is Bono Giamboni, before 1292, in the sense irreligious, sacrilegious.^[6][8] Giamboni writes that it is fitting for heretics to be called empi, because the error of false doctrine has made them strangers to the truth.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the adjective meant first one who does not fear God and his laws, then a sinner, one without respect for others, especially close kin, and one without pity, cruel, and of animals ferocious.^[2] DELI dates the sense “pitiless, cruel” from Dante, before 1321.^[6] Dante has Farinata ask perché quel popolo è sì empio / incontr' a' miei in ciascuna sua legge? (“why is that people so pitiless against my kin in every law?”).^[12][4]

Tommaseo explains the word through the Latin idea of pietà, duty to the gods, to elders and to the suffering.^[5] Poets used empio for an adverse fate, as in Petrarch's l'empia e violenta mia fortuna.^[8][10] The noun empietà is recorded from before 1363 (Matteo Villani).^[6] Today the word belongs to formal and literary language, with an extended sense of disrespect for institutions and traditions.^[8][3]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur has the first record.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses empio for heretics.^[6][11]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it in the sense “pitiless, cruel”.^[6]
• Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses the noun empietà.^[6]
• End of the 14th century – Empietà is used for an impious act or speech in the Italian Bible.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. impious, sacrilegious: gravely offending religion and sacred things.^[8][12][13]
2. (by extension) Disrespectful of institutions and traditions held in honour.^[8][3]
3. pitiless, cruel, wicked: guilty of grave injustice or cruelty, or showing such cruelty.^[8][12][13]
4. (literary) Adverse, unjust, said of fate or fortune.^[8][3][14]

Noun

1. An impious, sacrilegious or cruel person.^[12][13][14]

Word family

• empietà
• empiamente
• empiezza

Related words

• pio
• Latin impius

Usage notes

Tuscan has a rare adjective empio “full, sated”, the past participle of empire without its ending, recorded from the 13th–14th century.^[11][8][10] Treccani notes that it is mostly jocular, because of the play on the word for “impious”.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
5. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 137
12. ^ a b c d 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana