giungere

Forms

giungere (first-person singular present giùngo, first-person singular past historic giùnsi, past participle giùnto, auxiliary (intransitive) èssere or (transitive) avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin iungō (“to yoke; to join”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb lives on across Romance: French joindre, Occitan jonher, Catalan junyir, Spanish uncir and Portuguese jungir, besides Sardinian and Friulian forms.^[3][5] DEI calls it pan-Romance except for Romanian, while Wiktionary relates Romanian ajunge “to arrive” to it.^[6][1]

The first meaning of the Latin verb was “to put under the yoke”, which the Spanish and Portuguese verbs still keep.^[3] It is a present formed with a nasal infix on the root of Latin iugum (“yoke”), the source of giogo.^[3][7][8] De Vaan traces it to a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *yunégti (“to yoke”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *yewg-, with cognates such as Ancient Greek ζεύγνυμι (zeúgnumi) and Lithuanian jùngti.^[8][1][3]

The sense “to arrive” belongs to Italian alone.^[3] Nocentini explains it through the intermediate senses “to conclude” and “to reach”, and DEI through the idea of coming to join someone, the opposite of leaving and parting;^[3][6] DEI also finds it typical of Tuscan and literary Italian.^[3][6] The older form giugnere shows the treatment of ⟨ng⟩ before a front vowel found in the central dialects.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, which it places in the last quarter of the 12th century, and its first sense is “to place side by side, to put together”.^[11] DELI's first examples, both before 1250, are from Giacomo da Lentini, who already uses the verb both for “to arrive, to reach” and for “to join, unite”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the transitive verb in many senses: to yoke draught animals, to join in marriage, to form alliances, to bring a planet into conjunction, and to add numbers together.^[11] It could also mean “to add”, as in Petrarch's pur vai / giugnendo legne al foco (“you keep adding wood to the fire”), “to overtake”, “to strike” and “to deceive”.^[10][4]

These transitive senses have become literary or obsolete; the main survival is giungere le mani, to join the palms in prayer.^[10][12][13] The intransitive “to arrive” is the common verb today, with set phrases such as giungere in porto “to reach a successful end” and giungere nuovo “to come as news”.^[10][4]

The old sense “to join” survives in derivatives: giunta “addition”, as in per giunta “into the bargain”, and giuntare “to cheat”.^[5][3]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur have the first record.^[11]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses the verb for “to arrive” and for “to join”.^[2]
• 13th century – The past participle giunto and the noun giunta “addition” are recorded.^[3]
• Before 1313 – Giuntura “joint” is recorded.^[3]
• 1902 – Giunto is first used as a noun.^[3]
• 1952 – Giuntista is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To arrive at or reach a place: Siamo giunti a Napoli verso mezzanotte.^[4][12][13]
2. (intransitive) Of a time or season, to come: È giunta l'ora di decidere.^[4][12]
3. (intransitive) Of news, to reach someone;^[4][12][14] giungere nuovo, to come as a surprise;^[4][12][14] giungere all'orecchio, to come to one's ears.^[4][12][14]
4. (intransitive, with a and an infinitive) To go so far as to do something: È giunto a negare l'evidenza.^[4][9][13]
5. (intransitive, dated) To happen, come about.^[4][13][15]
6. (transitive, literary) To join, put together;^[4][14][12] giungere le mani, to join the palms in prayer.^[4][14][12]
7. (transitive, archaic) To add; to overtake; to strike; to take by surprise.^[4][13][10]

Word family

• giunto
• giunta
• giuntare
• giuntatrice
• giuntista
• sopraggiunta
• sopraggiungere
• soggiungere

Related words

• aggiungere
• congiungere
• giuntura
• giunzione
• raggiungere
• disgiungere
• ingiungere
• giogo
• Latin iungō
• French joindre

Usage notes

The verb takes essere when intransitive and avere when transitive.^[1][13] The old form giugnere is still recorded as archaic or less common.^[14][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 e f g h i j k l m Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1821
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ 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)
11. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli