fattura

Forms

fattura f (plural fatture)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian factura, fatura, faiture and fagiura.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin factūra (“a making; composition”), formed from faciō (“to make”) with the suffix -ūra, the past participle being factus.^{[4][5][6][7][1]} The word is found across the Romance languages: Old French faiture (“form”), the source of English feature, Old Occitan fachura (“spell, sorcery”), Portuguese feitura and Romanian făptură (“creature”).^[5][8][9] The forms French facture and Spanish factura were taken from Latin again.^[5] The Latin verb goes back, through Proto-Italic *fak-i-, to the root Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put”).^[10]

DEI notes that Christian writers used the Latin word for “creation” and “creature”, and holds that the sense “sorcery”, common in Old Italian, comes from Church use of the word and is recorded from the 3rd century.^[9] Nocentini sees the word in that sense as a euphemism of popular superstition for a spell.^[5] The commercial sense grew among Florentine bankers and merchants of the 15th century;^[5][9] DEI treats it as a separate headword.^[5][9] The Latin ⟨-ct-⟩ became ⟨-tt-⟩, as in fatto.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Istoria of the Pseudo-Uguccione, a Lombard text of the first half of the 13th century.^[2] The oldest sense is a deed or work done, and soon the act of creation, a thing's form or outward look, and paid work and its price.^[2] DELI's first date, before 1292 in Bono Giamboni, is for the act of making something by hand.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian fattura covered the whole range of making: the work done, God's work of creation and the creature itself, and a person's form or look.^[2][6] Dante's prayer to the Virgin says that the Maker of human nature “did not disdain to become its creature” (non disdegnò di farsi sua fattura).^[11][12] The sense of magic, a spell cast on someone, is recorded before 1348 in Francesco da Barberino and stays alive above all in the southern dialects.^[4]

The commercial sense began with the price paid for a piece of work (Giovanni Villani) and became the merchant's list of goods with their prices, recorded in 1404 in the Datini archive.^[4][13][14] 19th-century purists objected to this use with little reason.^[4] The derivatives went their own way: fatturare meant to doctor wine (Magalotti, 1711) before it meant to invoice (1908), and fatturato became a firm's turnover in 1963.^[4] German has Faktur “invoice” from about 1600, a relatinised form, and the word passed into Turkish fatura, Albanian faturë and Arabic.^[15][1][9]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – The Lombard Istoria of the Pseudo-Uguccione has fattura.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for the act of making something.^[4]
• Before 1321 – Affatturare, to bewitch, is recorded.^[5]
• Before 1348 – Francesco da Barberino uses fattura for sorcery.^[4]
• 1404 – The sense of a commercial invoice is recorded in the Datini archive.^[4][15]
• 1711 – Lorenzo Magalotti uses fatturare for doctoring wine.^[4]
• 1908 – Fatturare in the sense “to invoice” is recorded.^[4][5]
• 1963 – Fatturato “turnover” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The making of something by hand and the work it needs; the way a thing is made, its workmanship or style: un mobile di ottima fattura.^{[6][11][12][1]}
2. (commerce) An invoice or bill: the document listing goods sold or services given and the amount due; also the printed form for it.^{[6][11][12][1]}
3. (literary) A thing made, a work; a creature.^[6][11][16]
4. (popular) Sorcery, a spell cast on someone: credeva che la vicina le avesse fatto una fattura.^{[6][11][12][17]}

Word family

• fatturare
• fatturato
• fatturazione
• fatturista
• affatturare
• autofattura

Related words

• fare
• fatto
• Old French faiture
• English feature

Usage notes

Fattura in the sense of a spell is close to maleficio, which is more formal, while malocchio is the evil eye, harm cast with a look.^[16] Common phrases include fattura pro forma and emettere una fattura (to issue an invoice).^[6][18]

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. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1606
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 427
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
16. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)