fratello

Forms

fratello m (plural fratelli or (obsolete) frategli, diminutive fratellìno, augmentative fratellóne (often, “member of a brotherhood”), pejorative fratellàccio, endearing fratellùccio)^[1] Old Italian had many forms, among them northern fradello and fraello.^[2] The old plural frategli is now obsolete.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frātellus (“little brother”), a diminutive of frāter (“brother”).^[1][4][5] DELI and Nocentini give it as a word of spoken Latin, DEI as a Late Latin word recorded by the grammarians.^[6][7][8] In Tuscany and most of northern Italy the diminutive took the place of frate, which was left with the sense “friar”; in southern Italy and Sicily, by contrast, it is the diminutive that came to mean a monk.^[8][9]

Paul Aebischer (1937), followed by Giuliano Bonfante (1973), argued that the word is not a direct continuation of the Latin one but a late learned revival, since until about 1130 a brother was still called by the descendant of germānus (“of the same parents”).^[6]

The plain Latin noun survives as Romanian frate, French frère and Old Occitan fraire, and in the sense “friar” as Spanish fraile and Portuguese frade.^[9] It goes back to Proto-Italic *frātēr, Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr (“brother”), and is cognate with Ancient Greek φράτηρ (phrátēr, “member of a brotherhood”), Old Irish bráthair and brother.^[10][1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Genoese Contrasto of the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, about 1190.^[2] DELI's first Tuscan record is a Florentine account book of 1211, with the sense “a man born of the same parents as another”.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word took several qualified forms: fratello carnale and fratello germano for a full brother, and fratello cugino for a cousin.^[2] It was also used for any man as a fellow human being, and as an affectionate form of address.^[2] Dino Compagni (1310–1312) uses it for one bound to others by a religious, political or social tie, and the statutes of the Disciplinati of Siena (13th–15th century) for a member of a lay confraternity.^[6][2]

The noun fratellanza “brotherhood, fellowship” is in Dante (1304–1308), and in 1602 it named a mutual-aid society.^[6] Fratellastro “half-brother” comes from northern Italy (Venetian fradelastro 1829, Milanese fradellaster 1840) and entered common Italian only in the second half of the 19th century.^[6] Zingarelli records the use after a noun, partiti fratelli “sister parties”, in 1970.^[6]

Recent uses are calques of English: young people's fratello for a friend follows American brother, and Grande Fratello, the all-seeing totalitarian state, follows Orwell's Big Brother.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1190 – Raimbaut de Vaqueiras uses the word in his Genoese Contrasto.^[2]
• 1211 – A Florentine account book records fratello.^[6][5]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses fratellanza for fellowship.^[6]
• 1310–1312 – Dino Compagni uses fratello for a member of the same faction or faith.^[6]
• 1829 – Venetian fradelastro “half-brother” is recorded.^[6]
• 1861 – Fratellastro appears in an Italian dictionary.^[6][7]
• 1970 – The adjectival use after a noun is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. brother, a man or boy with the same parents as another person, or one of them; in the plural also brothers and sisters together: Quanti fratelli hai?^[5][12][1]
2. (by extension) A man bound to others by friendship, a shared country, cause or ideals; also as an affectionate form of address.^[5][13][11]
3. (Christianity) Every man as a child of God, in relation to the others; in the plural, fellow Christians.^[5][13]
4. A member of a confraternity or a lay brother of a religious order; also a title of members of some societies.^[5][12][1]
5. (figurative) A thing closely similar or akin to another.^[5]
6. (as an adjective, after the noun) Of the same origin or principles: popoli fratelli.^[5][12][6]

Word family

• fratellanza
• fratellastro
• fratellino
• fratellone
• affratellare
• confratello

Related words

• frate
• fraternità
• fraternizzare
• fraterno
• sorella
• fra'
• Latin frater

Usage notes

Like other names of relatives, fratello takes no article after a possessive (mio fratello).^[12][13] In the old dialects of Pavia and Treviso the word for “sister” was remade on the masculine, as frela and fradella.^[8] The set phrase fratello di latte means a foster brother, one nursed by the same woman.^[5][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ 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
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1710
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. Supplemento 2009
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli