Etymologically
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fumare

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Pronunciation

Forms

fumare (first-person singular present fùmo, first-person singular past historic fumài, past participle fumàto, auxiliary avére)[1] An old spelling is Old Italian fummare.[2][3][4] It survives as a rarer variant.[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fūmō (“to smoke, give off smoke”), a verb formed from fūmus (“smoke”), the source of fumo.[6][7][8][9] The verb lived on across the Romance languages: French fumer, Occitan fumar, Catalan fumar, Sardinian fumare, Romansh fümer, Friulian fumâ and Romanian fuma.[7][10][11]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *fūmo- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰuh₂mós (“smoke”).[12] De Vaan notes that a long vowel would be expected to shorten before the resonant, and follows Schrijver in explaining the ⟨ū⟩ by the influence of fūlīgō (“soot”) and suffiō (“to fumigate”).[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Composizione del mondo of Restoro d'Arezzo (1282), in the sense “to give off smoke”.[2][13] DELI's first record of that sense is in Folgore da San Gimignano at the end of the 13th century, who wants wine drawn and the kitchen smoking (“Far trar del vino e fumar la cucina”).[6][4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for steam rising, for humours that rise from the stomach to the head, for dust stirred up by fighting, and for exposing something to smoke to perfume or cure it.[2] Dante uses it transitively for giving off smoke or vapour (before 1321), and in Inferno 25 the two damned souls “fummavan forte”, smoked hard, one through the wound and the other through the mouth.[6][3] In the Middle Ages fumare in a place also meant having one's hearth there, that is, a fixed home for taxation.[8]

The sense “to smoke tobacco” is recorded from 1699, after tobacco had come to Europe;[6][4] Lorenzo Magalotti describes a boy given to drinking and smoking.[6][4] Anger has made people “fume” since the 16th century.[14] Derivatives followed: fumata (1588), fumatore “smoker” (1829) and fumeria “opium den” (1939), from French fumerie.[7]

Timeline

  • 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo uses fumare “to give off smoke”.[2]
  • End of the 13th century – Folgore da San Gimignano writes of the kitchen smoking.[6]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses the verb transitively.[6]
  • 1588 – Fumata is recorded.[7]
  • 1699 – The sense “to smoke tobacco” is recorded.[6]
  • 1829 – Fumatore “smoker” is recorded.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To give off smoke: Dal comignolo usciva fumo: la stufa fumava.[8][15][13]
  2. To give off steam or vapour: Il brodo fuma nella tazza.[8][15][16]
  3. (figurative) To fume, to be very angry: fumare di rabbia.[8][15][1]
  4. To smoke tobacco or another substance: Fuma tre sigari al giorno.[8][15][5]
  5. (intransitive) To be a smoker: Ha smesso di fumare dopo trent'anni.[8][5][13]
  6. (literary) To give off smoke or vapour; figuratively, to arouse.[8][15][17]
  7. (historical) In the Middle Ages, to have one's hearth in a place, a fixed home for taxation.[8]

Word family

  • fumante
  • fumata
  • fumatore
  • fumatoio
  • rifumare

Usage notes

Fumare come un turco means to smoke very heavily.[8][15][13] Mi fuma la testa or il cervello is said when one can no longer think after too much mental effort.[15][13][17]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  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. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1732
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  17. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana