età

Forms

età f (invariable)^[1] Old and literary forms are Old Italian etate and Old Italian etade.^[2][3][4] Dialect forms include Sicilian aitati and Neapolitan aità.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin aetās (“age, lifetime; period”), from the accusative.^[1][6][7] The older forms Old Italian etate and Old Italian etade were shortened.^[3][2] DELI treats it as a learned word, but the LEI and the TLIO record a continuous popular tradition.^[8][5][4] In the north and the south, dialect forms such as Old Italian aitade and Old Italian eitade keep an unstressed syllable and go back to the archaic Latin form aevitās.^[5][9]

The word is found across Romance: Old French aé, Old Occitan edat, Catalan edat, Spanish edad, Portuguese idade and Sardinian edade, but not in Romanian.^[7][5] Engadine età is borrowed from Italian, and so is a Croatian word for “period” recorded in the 16th century.^[5]

The Latin noun is derived from Latin aevum (“time, lifetime”), and the old form is recorded in the Twelve Tables.^[10][6] Isidore of Seville already explained it by the older form.^[11] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *aiwotāts and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ey- (“vital energy, life”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Proverbia que dicuntur, a Venetian poem of the late 12th century.^[4] DELI's first date is Guittone d'Arezzo (before 1294), for “the years of one's life”, with the form etate.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word also meant each of the stages of human life: in the Convivio Dante divides life into four parts, e chiamansi quattro etadi, “and they are called four ages”.^[8][11] The sense “epoch, period” is found before 1337 in Guido da Pisa, and the short form età in Boccaccio (1339–1340).^[8] The geological sense, a division of an epoch, is dated 1846, in Carlo Cattaneo.^[8]

The phrase in età, “elderly”, was explained by Puccioni as a calque of the English phrase in age and by Medici as an Italian creation;^[8] DELI thinks the second more likely, since avanzato in età came first, but allows that the English phrase may have helped it spread.^[8] Common phrases are mezza età, maggiore età and minore età, and names of periods such as età della pietra and età dell'oro.^[6][2]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur use the word.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo writes etate.^[8]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for the stages of life.^[8]
• Before 1337 – Guido da Pisa uses it for “epoch”.^[8]
• 1339–1340 – Boccaccio uses the short form età.^[8]
• 1846 – Carlo Cattaneo uses it in geology.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. age: the number of years a person has lived: Alla sua età mio nonno lavorava già.^[6][3][1]
2. Each of the stages of human life: childhood, youth, adulthood, old age: l'età adulta.^[6][2][3]
3. The age of an animal, a plant or a thing: Gli anelli del tronco rivelano l'età dell'albero.^[6][3]
4. (literary) Life, lifetime.^[6][3]
5. epoch, era, historical period: l'età di Cesare.^[6][3][1]
6. (archaeology) A division of the human past by the material used, as età del bronzo.^[6]
7. (geology) A subdivision of an epoch.^[6][8]

Word family

• coetaneo

Related words

• evo
• Latin aetas
• French âge

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
5. ^ a b c d e Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 1, 1170
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 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 k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1553
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca