gonfiare

Forms

gonfiare (first-person singular present gónfio, first-person singular past historic gonfiài, past participle gonfiàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cōnflāre, literally “to blow together”, formed from flāre (“to blow”) with the prefix con-.^[2][3][4][1] In classical Latin the verb meant to fan a fire by blowing, and so to smelt metals and to bring together; only in Late Latin, in the language of medicine, did it take over from īnflāre the sense “to make swell”, which is the Italian one.^[2][5][3][6] Flāre may go back to the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”), which de Vaan gives with a question mark.^[7]

The initial ⟨g⟩ for Latin /k/ is a voicing that Devoto calls lenition;^[8][9] Sabatini–Coletti notes that it is not rare in Tuscan before /o/.^[8][9] Ascoli explained it by the lack of stress on the first syllable, which Körting found hard to square with golfo.^[10] The Old Italian past participle confiato kept the learned form.^[10][11] Tommaseo, alone among the dictionaries, preferred to derive the verb from inflāre with an imitative sound added.^[12]

The verb belongs to Occitan, southern French and Romansh as well as to northern and southern Italian dialects.^[5] The LEI sorts the Italo-Romance forms into three types, one that lost the ⟨n⟩, one that kept it and one influenced by implēre, each with variants with a voiced first consonant and with metathesis; outside Italy it survives in Friulian sglonfà and Sursilvan cuflar “to snow heavily”.^[13][14] The sources disagree on French gonfler: Battisti–Alessio and Meyer-Lübke take it from Italian in the 16th century, while Nocentini derives it from the Occitan dialects.^[5][14][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Sienese statute of 1309–1310, where the verb means to make something larger by filling it so that it stretches.^[11] DELI's first date is Dante's Commedia (1300–1313), in the intransitive sense “to swell, grow in volume”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the verb of a pregnant woman's belly, of rising dough, of sails filled by the wind and of a swelling sea or river; a Sienese statute treats gonfiare a carcass by blowing air into it as a fraud.^[11] The figurative sense “to puff up with pride” is also old, both transitive and reflexive;^[11][2] Savonarola uses it before 1498, and DELI dates the transitive sense “to make something seem bigger than it is” to 1887.^[11][2] The TLIO also records the classical sense “to melt in the fire”, which did not last.^[11]

The sense “to inflate a hollow object with air” is first dated in John Florio's dictionary of 1563.^[2] The adjective gonfio “swollen” followed in 1350, and with it the phrase andare a gonfie vele “to go splendidly”, literally “with full sails” (Redi, before 1698).^[2] Pallone gonfiato, a conceited person, is recorded from 1887.^[2] In colloquial Italian gonfiare someone is to beat them up, and in vulgar use to make a woman pregnant.^[4][6]

Timeline

• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the intransitive verb, “to swell”.^[2]
• 1309–1310 – The verb appears in a Sienese statute.^[11]
• 14th century – The transitive sense “to increase in volume” appears in the Bible translation.^[2]
• 1350 – Gonfio “swollen” is first recorded.^[2]
• Before 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola uses the verb for “to grow proud”.^[2]
• 1563 – John Florio records the sense “to inflate with air”.^[2]
• Before 1698 – Francesco Redi has andare a gonfie vele.^[2]
• 1887 – Petrocchi records the sense “to exaggerate” and pallone gonfiato.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To inflate, to blow up: to fill something elastic with air or gas: gonfiare un materassino.^[4][15][9]
2. (transitive) To fill or swell a surface by blowing on it, as the wind does sails.^[4][15]
3. (transitive) To make something swell or grow in volume, of rain on a river or of food on the stomach.^[4][9][6]
4. (colloquial, transitive) To beat someone up.^[4][15][16]
5. (figurative, transitive) To exaggerate, to blow something out of proportion; to inflate a price or a bill.^[4][15][9]
6. (figurative, transitive) To praise someone too much, so that they grow conceited.^[4][16]
7. (vulgar, transitive) To make a woman pregnant.^[4][15]
8. (intransitive, also gonfiarsi) To swell, to swell up: con il caldo mi si gonfiano i piedi.^[4][17][6]
9. (figurative, intransitive, also gonfiarsi) To become conceited, to puff oneself up.^[17][9][16]
10. (literary, intransitive) To seethe with barely restrained anger.^[4][17]

Word family

• gonfio
• gonfiore
• gonfiato
• gonfiamento
• gonfiatura
• gonfiatoio
• gonfiaggio
• gonfiezza
• gonfiaggine
• rigonfiare
• rigonfio
• sgonfiare
• sgonfio

Related words

• conflare
• enfiare
• soffiare
• fiato
• Latin cōnflō
• French gonfler

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1844
6. ^ 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)
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 16, 1453
14. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli