gioventù

Forms

gioventù f (invariable)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian gioventude, gioventute, giovantude and gioventudine, and in northern texts çoventù and zoventude.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Italian gioventude (also gioventute), inherited from Latin iuventus (“youth; the young people”).^[2][1][5] The Latin word meant both the active strength of youth and, collectively, the young people as a body; it was formed from iuvenis (“young”) and had its counterpart in senectūs (“old age”).^[2][6] The modern form lost the final syllable of the older forms in ⟨-tude⟩, ⟨-tute⟩.^[7][4]

DEI and the GDLI treat the word as learned rather than inherited.^[8][9] The same Latin word gave Old Occitan joventut, Spanish juventud and Portuguese juventude.^[10] An Old Astigian ⟨zovént⟩ is probably a loan from Old French jovent, which with jovén and jovent goes back to the Latin nominative.^[8]

The Latin adjective is the source of Italian giovane as well.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Venetian translation of the Latin comedy Pamphilus from about 1250, where the word names the stage of life between adolescence and adulthood.^[3] DELI's earliest example is giovantude in the 13th-century poet Chiaro Davanzati.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word already had all its main senses: the age of youth, sometimes personified, the qualities of the young such as freshness and vigour, the young people as a group, and by extension the early stage of anything, an animal, a plant or a people.^[3] Dante explains gioventute in the Convivio as the age that can “give help”, that is, bring perfection.^[2][12]

The collective sense “the young” is recorded in the 14th-century Bible translation, which also has the modern form gioventù.^[2] Guarini's line O primavera, gioventù dell'anno (“O spring, youth of the year”) shows the literary transferred use.^[13][4] Tommaseo's 19th-century dictionary sets it against vecchiaia in proverbs such as chi ride in gioventù piange in vecchiaia (“who laughs in youth weeps in old age”).^[14]

In the 20th century the word was used for youth organisations, such as the Fascist Gioventù del Littorio, and gioventù bruciata “burnt-out youth” became a set phrase.^[5][13] The word was borrowed into Ladin and Molise Croatian.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – The word appears in a Venetian translation of the Pamphilus.^[3]
• 13th century – Chiaro Davanzati uses giovantude.^[2][12]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino has gioventudine.^[2]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses gioventude in the Convivio.^[2]
• 14th century – The Bible translation has gioventù, also in the collective sense “the young”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. youth: the time of life between late adolescence and maturity; a synonym of giovinezza: Ha girato il mondo in gioventù.^[5][13][7]
2. The young, taken as a whole; also the young people of a place or of a movement: La gioventù del quartiere si ritrova in piazza.^[5][13][4]
3. (figurative, literary) The early, fresh stage of something.^[13][4]

Related words

• giovane
• giovinezza
• Latin iuventus

Usage notes

The word is invariable: la gioventù, with no plural form in use.^[5][1] Fixed phrases include in gioventù “when young”, errore or peccato di gioventù “youthful mistake”, and ostello or albergo per la gioventù “youth hostel”.^[5][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1814
9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 6, 833
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana