Etymologically
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fiore

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Pronunciation

Forms

fiore m (plural fiori, diminutive fiorellìno or (poetic) fiorìno or fioricìno or (archaic) fiorèllo or fiorétto, augmentative fioróne, pejorative fioràccio)[1] Before another word it is often shortened to fior (fior di latte, a fior d'acqua).[2][3] Old forms include Old Italian flore, Old Italian frore and Old Italian fiur.[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin flōs (“flower”), from its accusative form.[6][7][8][1] The word is panromance: French fleur, Occitan flor, Catalan flor, Spanish flor, Portuguese flor, Sardinian flore, Friulian flor and Romanian floare.[7][9][10] It is masculine in Italian, Sardinian and Friulian but feminine in Romanian and in the west of the Romance area.[11] DÉRom reports the view that the feminine was the Romance gender and that Latin influence brought back the masculine.[11] The feminine “fiore” of Old Italian lyric poetry may copy French and Occitan usage, where the word is feminine.[4][5]

Latin “flōs” goes back to Proto-Italic *flōs and Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃-ōs (“blossoming”), an s-stem of a root meaning “to bloom”.[12] Its relatives are Celtic and Germanic: Old Irish bláth (“flower”), Old High German bluowen (“to bloom”), Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐍉𐌼𐌰 (blōma, “flower”), German Blume and Old Norse blóm, the source of English bloom.[12][7][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio, a poem from the Marche of the late 12th century;[4] Nocentini dates the word to before 1202.[7] DELI's first example is the Canticle of the Creatures of St Francis (before 1226), which praises the earth that “produces various fruits with coloured flowers and grass” (produce diversi fructi con coloriti fiori et herba).[6][5]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses go back to the earliest poets: Giacomo da Lentini (before 1250) used it for the choicest part of a people or a class of persons, Frederick II (before 1250) for a person of great beauty, and Bonagiunta (before 1257) for the best part of a substance.[6] Old Italian also used fiore as an adverb with a negative, “not a bit, not at all”: Dante asks to be forgiven “if my pen strays a little” (se fior la penna abborra, Inferno 25), and Bembo noted that the oldest writers used it in place of punto.[5][14]

In the 16th century the word took on technical senses: the “flowers” of chemistry, substances obtained by sublimation (1563), the surface of something (1585), behind a fior d'acqua “on the surface of the water”, and the suit of clubs in French playing cards (1561).[6] Bartoli (1661) used it for an abundance.[6] The gold fiorino (florin), coined at Florence in the 13th century, was named after the lily stamped on it, and the fencing foil, fioretto, after the button on its tip.[6][9] Florence itself is la città del Fiore.[15][16]

Timeline

  • Late 12th century – Fiore appears in the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio.[4]
  • Before 1226 – St Francis uses it in the Canticle of the Creatures.[6]
  • Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses it for the best of a group of people.[6]
  • 1237 – Medieval Latin florenus is recorded at San Gimignano, Italian fiorino follows in 1271.[6]
  • 1561 – Fiori is recorded as the suit of clubs.[6]
  • 1563 – Mattioli uses it for a substance obtained by sublimation.[6]
  • 1585 – Garzoni uses it for the surface of something.[6]
  • 1725 – Fior fiore, “the very best”, is recorded.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A flower, blossom: the showy, often coloured and scented part of a plant: Le ha portato un mazzo di fiori di campo.[8][15][2]
  2. (botany) The reproductive structure of flowering plants, with sepals, petals, stamens and pistils.[8][15][16]
  3. A plant grown for its flowers: In primavera pianta i fiori sul balcone.[8][2][16]
  4. (figurative) The best part, the pick of something: il fiore della nobiltà.[8][2][15]
  5. (figurative) The prime, the time of greatest splendour: nel fiore degli anni, in the prime of life.[8][16]
  6. (figurative) A person or thing of great beauty or goodness: Quel bambino è un fiore.[8][16]
  7. The surface of something, in phrases such as a fior d'acqua and a fior di pelle.[2][8]
  8. (card games, plural) clubs, one of the four suits of French playing cards: il re di fiori.[2][1]

Word family

  • fiorire
  • fiorito
  • fioritura
  • fiorente
  • fiorino
  • fioretto
  • fiorellino
  • fioraio
  • fiorista
  • fioriera
  • fiorame
  • fiorato
  • fiorile
  • infiorare
  • sfiorare
  • fiordilatte
  • affiorare
  • fiordaliso
  • floreale
  • Latin flos
  • French fleur

Usage notes

Common phrases are fiore all'occhiello, a buttonhole flower and figuratively a source of pride, essere in fiore, to be in bloom, and fiori d'arancio, orange blossom as the symbol of a wedding.[3][16][17] Fior di before a noun means “a fine, a real”, and fior fiore means “the very best”.[8][7]

GRADIT has a second, obsolete fiore, in the plural “menstruation”, from Latin fluōrem “flow”, from fluere “to flow”;[8] Prati records fiori in this sense in Redi.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  3. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  4. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  11. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
  12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  15. ^ 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
  16. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  18. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 445