giugno

Forms

giugno m (uncountable)^[1] Old Italian and dialect forms include Old Italian giunio, Old Italian zugno, Old Italian iugnu and Old Italian gugno.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Iūnius (“of Juno”), used as a noun by ellipsis of mēnsis (“month”): the month of Juno, to whom it was dedicated.^[3][4][5][1] The GDLI calls it a semi-learned word.^[6] The Latin word is an adjective formed from the goddess's name Iūnō with the suffix -ius;^[7][1] the name itself is of uncertain origin.^[8]

The word is pan-Romance except in Romanian:^[9] French juin, Occitan junh, Catalan juny and Portuguese junho, while Spanish junio came by learned transmission.^[4][10] A diminutive, Old French juignet, gave the French name of July, French juillet.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Florentine bankers' account book of 1211, where it names the sixth month of the year.^[3][2] The TLIO defines the Old Italian word as the month of the summer solstice, the sixth in the reckonings that began the year at Christmas or on 1 January.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Roman calendar, which began the year in March, June was the fourth month; it became the sixth in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.^[11][6] Old writers tie it to the harvest: Folgore da San Gimignano's sonnet for June offers “a little hill covered with fine trees” (una montagnetta / coverta di bellissimi arboscelli), and the Italian Crescenzi advises preparing the threshing floor in June.^[6][12] The proverb giugno, la falce in pugno (“June, sickle in fist”) says the same.^[13]

The word gave names of early-ripening fruit, giugnolo for a pear and giugnolino for an apple.^[14]

Timeline

• 1211 – Giugno appears in a Florentine bankers' account book.^[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. June: the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, of thirty days, between maggio and luglio: Ci sposeremo a giugno.^[5][15][8]

Word family

• giugnolo

Related words

• Giunone
• Latin Iunius
• French juin

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ 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, 880
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 509
15. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier