fallare

Forms

fallare (first-person singular present fàllo, first-person singular past historic fallài, past participle fallàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin fallāre (“to err”), a form recorded in Late Latin glosses in place of the classical verb of the third conjugation, which meant “to deceive” and, in the passive, “to be mistaken”.^[2][3][4][5] Devoto and the GDLI describe the Late Latin verb as an intensive of the classical one.^[6][7] Wiktionary also allows a formation within Italian from fallo or falla with -are, or a source in Vulgar Latin *falla,^[1] but DELI takes both nouns to be formed from the verb.^[2] fallire continues the classical verb.^[3][2]

De Vaan connects the Latin verb with Ancient Greek σφάλλω (sphállō, “to bring down”) and traces it to Proto-Indo-European *sgʷʰh₂el- (“to stumble”); the sense would then have moved from “stumble” to “deceive”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, from the last quarter of the 12th century.^[9] DELI's first record is from the 13th century, in Rinaldo d'Aquino, in the sense “to commit an error, a fault, a sin”, and Zingarelli dates the verb before 1250.^[2][10][7]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb covered breaking customs or laws and sinning against God, betraying a trust or breaking one's word, telling an untruth, being wrong in one's opinion, and also being missing or falling short: not working, not reaching a sum, not happening.^[9] The infinitive was used as a noun, “fault, sin”, as in Dante's Vita Nuova (lo tuo fallar d’onni torto tortoso).^[7][9] Dante has Minos, a cui fallar non lece (“who may not err”), and the blind a cui la roba falla (“whose means run short”).^[10][11][5]

The noun fallo “fault” is recorded before 1294 in Guittone, and its sense “breach of the rules of a game” before 1484 in Pulci; as a sports term it pushed out the English words fault and out.^[2] falla, a hole in a ship's hull, is a sailors' word from 1612 that reached the dictionaries in 1798 and everyday language only in the 19th century.^[2]

The verb is now literary, kept in proverbs such as chi non fa non falla and in botany, of seeds that fail to germinate.^[4][11][5]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur use the verb.^[9]
• Before 1250 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[10]
• 13th century – Rinaldo d'Aquino uses fallare “to sin, to do wrong”.^[2][7]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the noun fallo “fault”.^[2]
• Before 1484 – Luigi Pulci uses fallo of a breach of the rules of a game.^[2]
• 1612 – Falla “leak in a ship's hull” is recorded in A. Falconi.^[2]
• 1942 – Falloso “making many mistakes” is recorded.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To make a mistake, to be wrong: Se ho fallato nei conti, correggimi.^{[4][11][12][1]}
2. (literary) To sin, to do wrong.^[4][13][1]
3. (archaic or literary) To be lacking, to fail, to fall short.^{[4][11][10][1]}
4. (botany) Of seeds, to fail to germinate; of a graft, not to take.^{[4][11][10][1]}
5. (rare, transitive) To get wrong, to miss: fallare il bersaglio.^[10][14][1]

Word family

• fallo
• falla
• falloso
• fallosità
• fallanza
• fallato
• fallatura
• sfallare

Related words

• fallire
• Latin fallō

Usage notes

The proverb chi non fa non falla says that only those who do nothing make no mistakes.^[11][10][13] The past participle fallato is used of cloth, glass and other goods with a flaw.^[5] The TLIO keeps as a separate headword a fallare of the Libro di Sidrach (Florence, 1383), which it derives from French falloir.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ 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)
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli