fiato

Forms

fiato m (plural fiati)^[1] Old Italian forms include fiado, Old Italian fiao and Old Italian fiatu, and northern forms that keep the cluster, such as Old Italian flado and Old Italian flato.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin flātus (“blowing, blast; breath”), the action noun formed from flō (“to blow”) with the suffix -tus.^{[3][4][5][1][6]} The same Latin noun was borrowed by learned writers as flato, its doublet.^[3][7][1]

Meyer-Lübke lists the inherited outcomes Sardinian fiadu “livestock” in Logudorese, Romansh flet “breath” in the Engadine and Old Occitan flat “breath”.^[8]

Nocentini places the Latin verb in the word family of fluō (“to flow”) and compares Germanic verbs of blowing: Old High German blāen (“to swell”), the source of German blähen, and Old English blāwan (“to blow”), the source of the English verb blow.^[4] De Vaan reconstructs, with a question mark, a root Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”).^[9] Devoto saw it as an old imitative formation.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Libro of Uguccione da Lodi, a Cremonese poem of the early 13th century, where the word means breathing, the drawing of air into the lungs and its release.^[2] DELI's earliest dated sense is “gust of wind”, in Bono Giamboni before 1292, followed by “air breathed out through nose and mouth” in Iacopone before 1306.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word already covered the breath itself, life (tirare il fiato “to breathe”), a blast of air or wind, the act of speaking (fare fiato “to speak”, perdere il fiato “to talk in vain”), a smell, and a tiny amount.^[2] Dante uses it for a stench, al tristo fiato (“to the foul breath”), in Inferno XI.^[5][11] Old writers also used it for a stench in general, for speech, and for “nothing at all”.^[12]

The musical sense began with strumento di fiato, recorded in the TLIO and dated by DELI to Bartolomeo da San Concordio before 1347.^[2][3] As a music term fiato passed into English and, in 1879, into German.^[13] A Tuscan proverb recorded by Tommaseo says finché c'è fiato c'è speranza, “while there is breath there is hope”.^[14]

Modern Italian adds the colloquial sense “stamina” (avere fiato, and fare il fiato, to train for endurance) and the plural fiati for the wind section of an orchestra.^[5][15] In Rome gli puzza il fiato (“his breath smells”) is said of someone suspect or unwelcome.^[15][16]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi's Cremonese Libro has the first record.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses fiato for a gust of wind, and fiatare “to breathe”.^[3]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone da Todi uses it for the breath.^[3]
• Before 1347 – Bartolomeo da San Concordio has the sense “wind instrument”.^[3]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani has fiato, a feudal service (a separate word).^[2][17]
• 1879 – German Fiato is recorded as a music term.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. breath: the air breathed out from the lungs through the mouth and nose: Il suo fiato sapeva di caffè.^{[5][15][7][1]}
2. breathing, respiration: trattenere il fiato, to hold one's breath;^[5][16] mandare l'ultimo fiato, to die.^[5][16]
3. (colloquial) stamina, the capacity to keep up an effort: Dopo tre rampe di scale era già senza fiato.^[5][15][7]
4. (literary, figurative) Voice, words: fiato sprecato, wasted words.^[5][15][11]
5. (literary) A breath of wind, a breeze; an exhalation or strong smell.^[5][7][11]
6. (music) A wind instrument (strumento a fiato); in the plural, the wind section of an orchestra.^[5][15][1]
7. (figurative) A tiny amount; with a negative, nothing: non valere un fiato.^[5]

Word family

• fiatone
• fiatoso
• affiatare
• affiatamento
• sfiatare
• sfiato
• sfiatatoio
• sopraffiato

Related words

• fiatare
• flato
• Latin flātus

Usage notes

Common phrases are d'un fiato or tutto d'un fiato “in one go, without stopping”, in un fiato “in an instant”, col fiato sospeso “with bated breath” and prendere fiato “to get one's breath back”.^[5][16][11] A minor homograph fiato, a historical term for the service a vassal owed his lord, is derived from fio “fief”;^[17][2] Giovanni Villani uses it.^[17][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 437
13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ 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
16. ^ 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)
17. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca