fondere

Forms

fondere (first-person singular present fóndo, first-person singular past historic fùsi, past participle fùso, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old past participle was fonduto, and an old variant of the verb is fùndere.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fundō (“to pour; to melt; to spread”).^[5][6][7][1] The same verb is French fondre, Occitan fondre, Catalan fondre, Sardinian fundere of Logudoro and Engadine fuonder, but it is not found in Romanian, Spanish or Portuguese.^[6][8][9] A compound with Latin trāns- gave travunder in Old Genoese and Old Milanese and Piedmontese travunde, meaning “to swallow”.^[9][8]

The Latin verb comes from Proto-Italic *hundō and Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰew- (“to pour”), with a root extension in /d/ that Germanic also has, as in German gießen (“to pour”).^[10][1][11] Latin remade the verb as a nasal present.^[10][11] Without the extension the root is in Ancient Greek χέω (khéō, “to pour”).^[10][6] De Vaan notes that Latin /f/ from a PIE voiced aspirated velar is found only in this verb, and may be due to the following /u/.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giacomo da Lentini, between about 1230 and 1250, in the intransitive sense “to melt, become liquid”.^[5][12] The transitive “to melt a solid” follows at the end of the 13th century in the Fatti di Cesare: Fondò ariento o metallo per fare moneta, “he melted silver or metal to make coin”.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian kept the Latin sense of pouring: Dante speaks of people who shed through their eyes, drop by drop, the evil that fills the world, and of the man who biscazza e fonde la sua facultade, gambles away and squanders his wealth.^[7][12] The TLIO also records the senses “to soak, steep”, “to infuse (grace)” and “to sink, collapse” of the ground.^[12] Casting metal in a mould is first recorded in Cennino Cennini, around 1400.^[5]

The figurative sense of uniting several things into one appears at the end of the 18th century, in Francesco Milizia, and in 1797 Barzoni uses it of states.^[5] Melting the bearings of an engine through poor lubrication, and the intransitive ho fuso “my engine has seized”, are modern senses of motoring.^[7][13] The derivatives date from the 14th century on: fonditore (early 14th century), fonderia (before 1566, Annibal Caro), fondente (1730, Vallisneri, after French fondant).^[5][6]

Timeline

• c. 1230–1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses fondere intransitively, “to melt”.^[5][12]
• Late 13th century – The Fatti di Cesare have the transitive sense “to melt (metal)”.^[5]
• Early 14th century – Fonditore “founder” is recorded.^[5]
• 14th–15th century – Cennino Cennini uses the word of casting metal.^[5]
• Before 1566 – Annibal Caro uses fonderia.^[5]
• 1730 – Vallisneri uses fondente.^[5][6]
• 1797 – Barzoni speaks of merging states.^[5]
• Before 1798 – Francesco Milizia uses the sense “to blend into one”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To melt, turn from solid to liquid: fondere il burro a bagnomaria.^[7][14][2]
2. (transitive, metallurgy) To cast: make a metal object by pouring molten metal into a mould: fondere un busto in bronzo.^[7][14][13]
3. (transitive, also absolute, motoring) To burn out the bearings of an engine through overheating; to seize up: in salita il camion ha fuso.^[7][14][2]
4. (transitive, figurative) To merge, unite into one whole: fondere due banche.^[7][14][2]
5. (transitive, figurative) To blend harmoniously: fondere voci e strumenti.^[7][13]
6. (transitive, archaic) To pour out, shed;^[7][15] (figurative) to squander.^[7][15]
7. (intransitive, also pronominal fondersi) To melt: al sole la neve fonde in fretta.^[7][14][13]
8. (pronominal fondersi, reciprocal, figurative) To merge, combine into one.^[14][2][13]

Word family

• fonderia
• fonditore
• fondente
• fondibile
• fonditrice

Related words

• fusibile
• fusione
• fuso
• confondere
• diffondere
• effondere
• soffondere
• Latin fundō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
3. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1681
10. ^ a b c d 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 Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)