esso

Forms

esso (feminine essa, masculine plural essi, feminine plural esse)^[1] Forms in the old texts include Old Italian isso, Old Italian issu, Old Italian ipso, Old Italian epso and Old Italian eso.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ipsum (“himself, itself; the very one”), the accusative of the pronoun, on which nearly all the Old Italian forms are modelled.^[4][5][2][1] Prati starts from the Late Latin nominative ipsus,^[6] a form de Vaan finds in early Latin from Andronicus to Cato.^[7]

The word is pan-Romance: Old French es, Old Occitan eis, Catalan eix, Spanish ese, Portuguese esse, Sardinian issu and Romanian îns.^[5][8] Its old sense of identity, “the same, himself”, survives in Romanian, Italian, Occitan and Spanish; in southern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, under the influence of a form strengthened with Latin eccum (“behold”), it became a demonstrative of the second person, and in southern Italy, Tuscany and Venice a personal pronoun of the third person.^[8] In Sardinian and Majorcan it was weakened to a definite article, Sardinian su and es, and it entered new pronouns such as desso, medesimo, nessuno and stesso.^[5]

DELI calls the origin of the Latin word uncertain.^[4] De Vaan explains it as the pronoun Latin is followed by a particle -pse, probably from Proto-Italic *-pe-so, with the pronoun Proto-Indo-European *so: in the oldest Latin both parts were inflected, as in eumpse and eapse.^[7] Nocentini compares the emphatic particle with Hittite pat (“same”).^[5] Devoto saw in the extension a formation found only in Italy.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's earliest record is an Umbrian confession formula from Norcia of 1065.^[2] DELI's first date is 1193, the form issu in a document from the Marche, as a third person pronoun for the thing or animal spoken of.^[4][10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was first emphatic, “the same, in person”, and then a word for what has already been mentioned, “the said”; in dialogue it could point to what is near the listener, like codesto, and it also served as a third person pronoun for people.^[2] Dante writes vid'io in essa luce altre lucerne, “I saw in that light other lamps”.^[10]

After prepositions it strengthened a personal pronoun, as in con esso lui “with him”, often without agreement (con esso i piè, Dante); Boccaccio has essalei as one word, and essolui and essalei are dated to the 16th century by DEI.^{[11][12][13][14]} It also formed prepositions: lunghesso “along” (in the Italian Albertano, Dante and Boccaccio), sovresso “above” (Dante) and sottesso “below” (Boccaccio).^[6][8]

Tommaseo tells that the Romans themselves said it the Italian way, so that the emperor Claudius fined a senator who said isse for ipse.^[15] In modern Italian the singular is literary or uncommon, used mostly for things and animals, while the plurals essi and esse have taken the place of eglino and elleno.^[10][12][1]

Timeline

• 1065 – An Umbrian confession formula from Norcia has the word.^[2]
• 1193 – Issu appears in a document from the Marche.^[4][10]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses lunghesso and sovresso.^[6]
• 1500s – Essolui and essalei are recorded.^[13]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. it: refers back to a thing or animal already named, as subject or after a preposition: Ho trovato un vecchio baule: esso era pieno di lettere.^{[10][3][14][1]}
2. (literary, rare) He, him, of a person.^[3][1]
3. (plural essi, esse) They, them, of people, animals or things, in place of the old eglino and elleno.^[10][11][16]
4. (bureaucratic) In chi per esso, whoever acts in his place.^[10][3][16]

Adjective

1. (literary) This, that, the said; also before a proper name.^[10][3][11]
2. (archaic) Strengthening a personal pronoun after con, as in con esso lui “with him”.^[10][3][11]

Word family

• lunghesso
• sovresso
• sottesso
• essolui
• anch'esso

Related words

• egli
• stesso
• medesimo
• desso
• Latin ipse

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 410
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1546
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli