Etymologically
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frase

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Pronunciation

Forms

frase f (plural frasi)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin phrasis (“diction, style”), a learned borrowing, from Ancient Greek φράσις (phrásis, “expression, way of speaking”), a noun formed from φράζω (phrázō, “to point out, tell”).[2][3][4][1][5] Quintilian uses the Latin word in the sense of ēlocūtiō (“style”).[6][7] The origin of the Greek verb is uncertain.[2][8]

The same word is French phrase, recorded in 1546, and Spanish frase;[3][6][7] Nocentini notes that it spread through the European languages.[3][6][7] The set phrase frase fatta is a calque of phrase faite (1835).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Giovanni Della Casa, before 1556, for an independent unit of language with a complete meaning.[2][4] Nocentini dates the word to 1547 and Zingarelli to 1554.[3][8] In Della Casa it is used of the style of a piece of writing, of which some words or the whole phrasing may seem affected.[9]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word covered both a sentence and a turn of phrase: Tasso and Tassoni speak of phrases proper to one language, and Baretti of “the commonest phrases” as the basis of every language.[9] Tommaseo–Bellini notes that the French use phrase for a whole clause or more, while Italians used frase for a group of words whose meaning differs from that of each word alone.[10]

The musical sense, a complete unit of melody, appears in 1834.[2] Derivatives followed: fraseggiare (1651), frasario (1722 for a collection of an author's phrases, 1798 for a person's habitual phrases) and fraseggio (before 1883).[2] Fraseologia (1676) comes from humanist Latin phraseologia, coined in the 16th century by Michael Neander.[3] In modern linguistics frase is the technical term for the sentence, and in computing it names a string of symbols that forms an instruction.[4]

Timeline

  • 1547 – Nocentini's date for the first record.[3]
  • Before 1556 – Giovanni Della Casa uses the word.[2][4]
  • 1651 – Fraseggiare is recorded.[2]
  • 1676 – Fraseologia is recorded.[3]
  • 1834 – The musical sense appears.[2]
  • 1835 – Frase fatta is recorded, after French phrase faite.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (linguistics) A sentence: a unit of language with a complete meaning, which can stand on its own: Questa frase non ha il verbo.[4][11][12]
  2. An expression, a phrase: words used to say something: Non trovava la frase adatta per scusarsi.[4][11][8]
  3. (music) A musical phrase, a group of motifs with a more or less complete sense.[4][11][8]
  4. (puzzles) A word game whose solution is a sentence rather than a single word.[11]
  5. (computing) A finite sequence of symbols that represents an instruction.[4]

Word family

  • frasario
  • fraseggiare
  • fraseggio
  • fraseologia
  • fraseologico
  • frastico
  • French phrase
  • Ancient Greek φράσις (phrásis)

Usage notes

Frase usually corresponds to English sentence as well as phrase.[1] A frase fatta is a stock phrase or cliché, and in the plural frasi can mean empty words, as in sono solo frasi.[8][13][14]

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 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 e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1708
  7. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  8. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  9. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 304
  10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana