film

Forms

film m (invariable)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English film (“membrane; thin coating”), a word of Germanic origin recorded in English from about the year 1000 in the sense “membrane”.^[2][3][4][1] English used it for photographic film from the 1840s, and it is in this sense that Italian took it over at the end of the 19th century.^[3][5] DEI and the GDLI think it came through French film, recorded in 1889.^[6][5] The word was at first feminine in Italian and later became masculine;^[2][5][7] Tuscan and Roman speech adapted it as filme.^[2][5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in 1889, is the English phrase stripping film in the journal “L'Archivio fotografico”, glossed as the name the English give to photographic film.^[2] In 1905 Panzini's dictionary describes it as a thin support for the sensitive layer, used instead of glass or paper.^[2]

Semantic evolution

By 1907 a poster used film for a narrative motion picture, and Panzini's dictionary of 1918 defined it as the long strip in cinematographic apparatus.^[2][8] The word's real success came after the First World War, when it produced filmare, filmato and filmico (all 1916) and compounds such as telefilm and microfilm.^[2][3] Attempts to replace it with pellicola failed; instead film came to name the work shown and pellicola the light-sensitive material, a distinction already seen in Pirandello in 1915.^[2] The sense “thin layer, coating” is recorded from 1950, and farsi un film for an unfounded fantasy is recent youth slang.^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1889 – Stripping film appears in “L'Archivio fotografico”.^[2]
• 1907 – A poster uses film for a motion picture.^[2][8]
• 1915 – Pirandello uses film for the finished picture.^[2]
• 1916 – Filmare, filmato and filmico are recorded.^[2][3]
• 1948 – Filmologia is recorded.^[2]
• 1950 – The sense “thin layer” is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Photographic or cinematographic film, pellicola.^[4][10][8]
2. A motion picture, a movie, especially a feature film: Ieri sera abbiamo visto un film giapponese.^[4][10][7]
3. The art of cinema: la storia del film.^[4][8]
4. A thin layer or coating; cling film for wrapping food.^[4][10][7]
5. (colloquial, figurative) A fantasy with no basis in reality: Non farti un film per una sola telefonata.^[10][9]

Word family

• filmare
• filmato
• filmico
• filmina
• filmografia
• filmologia
• filmabile
• filmetto
• filmino
• filmone

Usage notes

The word is invariable: un film, due film.^[1][4] The older plural filmi and the singular filme are found in Tuscan and Roman speech.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 d 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 e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 5, 996
6. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1643
7. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
10. ^ 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