giardino

Forms

giardino m (plural giardini, diminutive giardinétto or giardinùccio, augmentative giardinòne, pejorative giardinàccio)^[1] Old Italian forms include zardino, iardino, çardin and ziardino.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French jardin, recorded in French from the 12th century, a derivative of Old French jart.^[4][5][6][1] That word comes from Frankish *gardo (“enclosure”), related to Old High German garto and modern German Garten.^[5][4][7] The French noun was probably first an adjective in a Gallo-Romance phrase Vulgar Latin *hortus gardinus (“enclosed garden”), since an enclosure is what the Germanic word means.^[4][5][3] The form Medieval Latin gardinium is recorded from the 10th century.^[6][8]

Spanish jardín and Portuguese jardim were also borrowed from French, and English garden comes from the Norman variant Old French gardin.^[5][7][9] The Frankish word goes back to the root of orto.^[5][10]

The diminutive giardinetto and the noun giardiniera also depend on French models, French jardinet and jardinière.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Forms gerdinos and iardinos appear in a document from Rossano of perhaps 1104, and Prati cites Genoese jardino in documents of the 10th–12th centuries.^[4][11] In Italian texts the word appears in the 13th century: zardino in Guido Faba, jardino in Cielo d'Alcamo, and giardino in Giacomino Pugliese, always as a plot planted with ornamental plants.^[4][3] The TLIO's first record is the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the garden became an image of any pleasant, fertile place, of a kingdom, of the earthly paradise and of heaven; by antiphrasis it could even name a latrine.^[2] Dante calls paradise il bel giardino che sotto i raggi di Cristo s'infiora, “the fair garden that blossoms beneath the rays of Christ”.^[6] A 13th-century sonnet already calls Italy il giardino.^[11]

Modern compounds were mostly coined in the 19th century: giardino pubblico (1795), giardino zoologico (1841), giardino d'infanzia (1869, a translation of German Kindergarten) and giardino d'inverno (1918, after French jardin d'hiver).^[4][12] Città giardino is a residential district of villas among greenery.^[4][13] It can also mean a citrus or orange grove.^[6] German borrowed the word as giardin in 1472–1473.^[14]

Timeline

• 10th century – Medieval Latin gardinium is recorded.^[6][8]
• 1104 (?) – Iardinos appears in a document from Rossano.^[4]
• 13th century – Zardino, jardino and giardino in Guido Faba, Cielo d'Alcamo and Giacomino Pugliese.^[4]
• Late 13th century – Giardiniere appears in the Novellino.^[4]
• 1795 – Giardino pubblico is recorded.^[4]
• 1841 – Giardino zoologico is recorded.^[4]
• 1869 – Giardino d'infanzia “kindergarten” is recorded.^[4]
• 1918 – Giardino d'inverno “conservatory” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. garden, a plot of land, usually enclosed, planted with ornamental plants and flowers: Pranziamo in giardino quando fa bel tempo.^[6][15][13]
2. (figurative) A fertile, pleasant place: Questa costa è un giardino.^[6][12]
3. A citrus or orange grove.^[6]
4. (figurative, literary) paradise.^[6][13]

Word family

• giardiniere
• giardiniera
• giardinetto
• giardinetta
• giardinaggio

Related words

• orto
• French jardin
• German Garten
• English garden

Usage notes

Types are named after national styles: giardino all'italiana with geometric beds and clipped hedges, giardino all'inglese imitating nature with lawns and groves, giardino alla francese with symmetrical straight lines.^[12][13][16] Giardino d'infanzia for a nursery school is now dated.^[13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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, 769
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1805
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 501
12. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ 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