ghiacciare

Forms

ghiacciare (first-person singular present ghiàccio, first-person singular past historic ghiacciài, past participle ghiacciàto, auxiliary (intransitive) èssere or (transitive, also alternatively when impersonal) avére)^[1] Old forms include giacciare and the dialect giazzare,^[2] and northern Old Italian texts have forms such as glaçaa and glazano.^[3] Tuscan has diacciare.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin glaciāre (“to freeze”), a verb formed from glaciēs (“ice”).^[6][4][5][1] The TLIO and the Battaglia dictionary call the Latin verb Late Latin.^[3][2] Devoto–Oli derives it within Italian from ghiaccio, and Wiktionary notes that it can be read so today.^[7][1]

The Latin noun has the same meaning as gelus (“frost”), and DELI and Nocentini put it in the same family, but de Vaan finds no sound way to derive it from a root meaning “to be cold”.^[8][9][10] The Latin cluster /gl/ became /gj/ in standard Italian, but in popular Tuscan it passed through the voiced affricate /dʒ/ to the /dj/ of diacciare.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Libro of Uguccione da Lodi, a Cremonese text of the early 13th century, where water turns into ice.^[3] DELI dates the intransitive “to become ice” to Restoro d'Arezzo in 1282, who writes that water does not freeze in a warm place but where the sun cannot reach.^[8][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb was mostly said of water and of places covered by ice, and also of liquids setting and of limbs stiff with cold.^[3] Giovanni Villani records that “the Rhône froze, so that one could cross it on foot” (ghiacciò il Rodano, sicché vi si poteva passare a piede), and Petrarch sets “we shall see fire freeze and snow burn” among the impossible things.^[11]

The impersonal use, of the weather, is dated to the 14th century, and the transitive “to freeze something” to Secondo Lancellotti in 1623.^[8] Later the verb spread to food and drink that grow cold and to people who freeze, and figuratively to a look or answer that leaves someone stunned.^[6][12]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses the verb in Cremona.^[3]
• 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo writes of water that freezes.^[8][6]
• 14th century – The impersonal use of the weather is recorded.^[8]
• 1623 – Secondo Lancellotti uses the verb transitively.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, also pronominal) To freeze, to turn into ice: Durante la notte la fontana si è ghiacciata.^{[6][7][5][12]}
2. (impersonal) Of the weather, to freeze, to be freezing: Domattina ghiaccerà.^[6][7][5]
3. (intransitive, hyperbolic) To grow cold, of food or drink, or to feel very cold, of a person.^[6][7][4]
4. (transitive) To freeze something, to make it cold as ice: Il gelo ha ghiacciato la strada.^[6][7][12]
5. (transitive, figurative) To leave someone stunned or paralysed, to chill: Quella notizia lo ghiacciò.^{[6][7][13][1]}

Word family

• ghiacciato
• ghiacciatura
• ghiacciamento
• sghiacciare

Related words

• ghiaccio
• ghiaccia
• diacciare
• agghiacciare
• gelare
• Latin glacies

Usage notes

The auxiliary is essere in the intransitive uses, and essere or avere in the impersonal one.^[7][5][1] In the figurative transitive sense gelare is the more common verb.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 730
3. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ 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
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana