fare

Forms

fare (first-person singular present fàccio, first-person singular past historic féci, past participle fàtto, first-person singular imperfect facévo, second-person singular imperative fài or fà', auxiliary avére)^[1] The full infinitive Old Italian facere was used in Old Italian and survives as an archaism.^[2][3][4] Old and poetic forms include face “he does”, the imperfect fea, feano and the past historic fei, fenno;^[3][5][6] fo beside faccio “I do” is still in use.^[3][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin fāre, the shortened Late Latin infinitive of Latin facere (“to make, do”).^[6][1][7] DELI, Nocentini and GRADIT give the classical “facere” as the source.^[8][9][10] The reduced infinitive is recorded from the 6th century and is the base of the central and northern Italian form and of Old Occitan far.^[11][12] Its shape and parts of its conjugation were influenced by dare and stare.^[10][12][7] The DÉRom reconstructs two Proto-Romance infinitives, a longer type continued in most of the Romance area and a short one found in its central and western part.^[13]

The verb is found in every Romance language: French faire, Occitan faire, Catalan fer, Spanish hacer, Portuguese fazer, Sardinian fághere, Romanian face, and Dalmatian fur.^[9][14]

Latin “faciō” continues Proto-Italic *fakjō.^[1] Its present was built on the perfect fēcī, which corresponds to Ancient Greek ἔθηκα (éthēka, “I put, placed”); both go back to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place”), with a consonant k that arose in the aorist of that root.^[9][15][1] The general meaning “make, do” probably developed from technical uses of “put, set up”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Breve di Montieri of 1219, a statute from the Sienese countryside, with the sense “produce something by the work of the hands or the mind; cause, bring about”.^[8][10] Nocentini and Devoto–Oli date the verb to the early 13th century.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

Like Greek poiéō, fare can stand for a more precise verb, and it was used early as a euphemism for bodily acts.^[11] Impersonal weather expressions go back to the Latin of the Empire: Augustine has fecit frigus “it was cold”, and fa freddo is the Italian type.^[11] After the auxiliaries essere and avere it is the most frequent verb of Italian and enters a very large number of set phrases.^[8] Modern popular usage added types such as fare la barba “shave (someone)”, farsi l'automobile “get oneself a car” and farla franca “get away with it”.^[11]

The causative construction far fare qualcosa a qualcuno, with the person in the dative, is common to the Romance languages;^[8] Dag Norberg explained it as an extension of a construction of Late Latin verbs of ordering and allowing.^[8] The phrase avere a che fare con “have to do with”, probably of northern origin, spread in contemporary Italian through confusion with the older aver che fare and aver da fare.^[8] The sense “give the impression of a setting” (quella giacca fa molto francese) copies a French expression; it was first found in 1931 and became fashionable from 1948.^[8]

The infinitive is also a noun, il fare, “action, doing” and “manner, bearing” (un fare sospetto), from the first half of the 13th century.^[2][6] Fra Giordano plays on it: Sono molti fari, che non sono fare, ma disfare “There are many doings that are not doing but undoing”.^[12] Prefixed verbs appeared early: disfare and rifare in the 13th century, sopraffare in the 14th, strafare in the 16th.^[9][4] Disfatta “rout” (16th century) and disfattismo “defeatism” (before 1918) are calques of French défaite and défaitisme.^[9]

Timeline

• 6th century – The shortened Latin infinitive fare is recorded.^[11][12]
• 1219 – Fare appears in the Breve di Montieri.^[8][10]
• First half of the 13th century – The noun il fare is recorded.^[2]
• Late 13th century – Disfare “undo” is recorded.^[9]
• 16th century – Disfatta is formed after French défaite.^[9]
• Before 1842 – Daffare “things to do” is formed from the phrase da fare.^[9]
• Before 1918 – Disfattismo is recorded, after French défaitisme.^[9]
• 1931 – The first known use of fare for “give the impression of” (fa molto francese).^[8]
• 1948 – This use becomes fashionable.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To do, carry out an action or activity; with a noun it often stands for a more specific verb (fare un salto, fare una domanda): Stasera non so proprio che cosa fare.^[10][2][6]
2. To make, build or prepare something: fare una torta, fare un muro.^[6][1]
3. To create or produce; of people and animals, to have young; of plants, to bear fruit or flowers.^[6][5][1]
4. To cause or bring about an effect or feeling: fare paura, fare male.^[5][1]
5. With an infinitive, to have someone do something, or let it happen: Mi ha fatto aspettare un'ora.^[8][1]
6. To work as or play the part of: fare il medico, fare lo stupido.^[1]
7. (colloquial) To amount to, to cost: Quanto fa in tutto?^[1]
8. (impersonal) Of the weather: fa caldo, fa freddo.^[11]
9. To give the impression of a style or setting: Questo arredamento fa molto anni Settanta.^[8]

Noun

1. Action, the act of doing: avere un bel fare, to try hard in vain.^[2][6]
2. Manner, bearing, way of behaving: un fare cortese.^[2][6][3]
3. The beginning, in sul far del giorno, sul far della sera, at daybreak, at nightfall.^[2][6][3]

Word family

• disfare
• sfare
• strafare
• confarsi
• confacente
• contraffare
• contraffattore
• contraffazione
• daffare
• indaffarato
• disfacimento
• disfatta
• disfattismo
• disfattista
• rifare
• sopraffare
• affare
• misfatto
• fattibile
• fannullone
• falegname

Related words

• faccenda
• facile
• facsimile
• fatto
• Latin faciō
• French faire

Usage notes

The third person fa is written without an accent; the imperative is fa’, fai or fa.^[5][3] A common proverb opposes saying and doing: tra il dire e il fare c'è di mezzo il mare.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 423
5. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 177
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1597
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill