guarire

Forms

guarire (first-person singular present guarìsco, first-person singular past historic guarìi, past participle guarìto, auxiliary (intransitive) èssere or (transitive) avére)^[1] The older variant guerire is now archaic;^[2][3][4] Old Italian also had northern garir and a past participle guaruto.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old French guarir, from Frankish *warjan (“to protect, ward off”).^[5][6][2][1] DELI and Zingarelli only give a Germanic source of the same form, meaning “to protect, keep away” and “to defend”, and Devoto–Oli takes it from Lombardic.^[3][7][4] Battisti and Alessio explain that the Frankish verb was Latinised in Gallo-Romance with the sense of keeping illness away, and spread with Carolingian culture to Italian, Catalan and Spanish, where it replaced Latin sānō and medicor.^[8] Wiktionary allows an intermediate late Vulgar Latin *warīre.^[1]

The same word is French guérir, Occitan garir and Catalan guarir, and Old Spanish guarir, with the same form in Old Portuguese (now Spanish guarecer and Portuguese guarecer).^[5][9][1] In Germanic it is related to Old High German werian, German wehren (“to prevent, resist”) and Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐍂𐌾𐌰𐌽 (warjan, “to forbid”).^[5][10] The variant guerire shows the influence of the French verb.^[11]

Zaccaria explains the shift of meaning as a narrowing from “to defend” in general to “to defend a sick person, to heal”.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Uguccione da Lodi, early in the 13th century (Cremona), in the sense of making a sick or wounded person well.^[2] DELI's first dated records are guerire in Brunetto Latini (before 1294) and figurative guariri in King Enzo (before 1272).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already had the full range of senses: curing a person, a disease or a wound; freeing someone from love-sickness or a vice; and intransitively recovering one's health.^[2][3] In Dante's Inferno (canto 27) Constantine sent for Pope Sylvester a guerir de la lebbre (“to cure him of leprosy”).^[12] Extended senses lasted less: saving from evil, redeeming from sin, restoring someone's honour, and even making goods presentable again.^[2]

Both forms were long in use: the Deputati who revised the Decameron noted that the best old books write guerire and guarire alike.^[13] Guarigione is late 13th century, and Battisti and Alessio take it from French guérison.^[3][8] The guaritore who claims to heal by unscientific means is recorded from 1945, in Carlo Levi.^[3] A proverb says il tempo guarisce tutti i mali, time heals all wounds.^[7]

Timeline

• Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses the verb.^[2]
• Before 1272 – King Enzo uses guariri figuratively.^[3]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses guerire.^[3]
• End of the 13th century – Guarigione appears in the Novellino.^[3]
• 14th century – Guaritore is recorded.^[3][5]
• 1861 – Inguaribile is recorded.^[5]
• 1945 – Carlo Levi uses guaritore for a folk healer.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To cure, to heal a person: Le cure l'hanno guarita in poche settimane.^[6][4][11]
2. (transitive) To cure an illness: Questo sciroppo guarisce la tosse.^[6][4][7]
3. (transitive, figurative) To free someone from a vice or a moral ill.^[6][4][7]
4. (intransitive) To recover, to get well: È guarito dall'influenza.^[6][4][14]
5. (intransitive) Of an illness, to pass; of a wound, to heal.^[6][4][14]
6. (intransitive, figurative) To get over a vice or a bad habit.^[6][7][11]

Word family

• guaribile
• guarigione
• guaritore
• inguaribile

Related words

• guarnire
• French guérir
• German wehren

Usage notes

The verb is conjugated with -isc- (guarisco, guarisci); the transitive verb takes avere, the intransitive essere.^[1][15] An obsolete use was guarire un liquido, to purify it.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ 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
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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1887
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ a b Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli