incendere

Forms

incendere (first-person singular present incèndo, first-person singular past historic incési, past participle incéso, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian encendere and Old Italian inzendere.^[2] It is conjugated like accendere: past historic incesi, past participle inceso.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin incendō (“to set on fire”).^[2][6][7][8] The Latin verb is formed from in-, intensive or “into”, and a verb meaning “to burn” that is also the base of candeō (“to shine, glow”).^[7][3][9][2] The ⟨a⟩ of the base became ⟨e⟩ in the closed medial syllable, as is regular in Latin.^[9]

The Latin verb continues in most of the Romance languages, but not in French: Occitan encendre, Catalan encender, Spanish encender, Portuguese encender and Romanian încinde.^[8][10][11] DEI finds it well represented in the dialects of central and southern Italy.^[11]

That verb goes back to Proto-Italic *kand-ē- (“to shine”); if it comes from Proto-Indo-European *kn̥d- (“shining”), its ⟨a⟩ is unexpected, and de Vaan explains it from forms with a cluster of consonants.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Nocentini date the first record to before 1320, Sabatini–Coletti to the 13th century, and Zingarelli to before 1250.^{[7][3][8][4][6]} The early sense is “to set on fire, burn”; in the Italian Crescenzi the people of the pepper country burn the forests when the pepper is ripe (“incendono le selve”).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the verb in the Inferno for the sinners burnt in a pit (“de la gente ch'entro v'era incesa”), and intransitively in his lyric poems (“il foco ond'ella trista incende”).^[5][7][13] The figurative sense, to inflame with passion, is in Petrarch: “Amor, che 'ncende il cor d'ardente zelo” (Love, which inflames the heart with ardent zeal).^[4][5] Many derivatives are old: incenditore and incendore “ardour” are of the 13th century, incendimento of the 14th.^[11][14] A Modena document of 843 already has the nickname Incendi-messe, “harvest-burner”.^[14]

Tommaseo noted that the verb was not part of ordinary speech but lived in some dialects.^[13] It remained a poetic word, used by Carducci (“Libica estate a me le membra incende”, the Libyan summer burns my limbs) and D'Annunzio.^[15][7] In the dialects the sense moved to pain and stinging: the word means “to hurt” at Sora and “to burn, itch, sting, hurt” in Friulian.^[10] Zingarelli records an obsolete intransitive sense “to grieve”.^[6]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – Incendere is recorded with the sense “to set on fire”.^[7][3][8]
• 14th century – Incendimento and incendente are recorded.^[11]
• 18th century – Incendibile is recorded.^[11]
• 19th century – Incenditrice is recorded.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To set on fire, burn, kindle: Il fulmine incese il fienile.^[7][5][6][1]
2. (literary, figurative) To inflame with love, anger or another passion: La sua voce m'incende il cuore.^[5][4][3][1]
3. (intransitive, literary) To burn, blaze.^[7][6][16]
4. (pronominal, as incendersi) To catch fire, flare up; also figuratively.^[6][5][16]

Word family

• incendimento
• incenditore
• incendevole
• incendibile
• incenditivo
• incendivo

Related words

• incendiare
• incendio
• accendere
• candela
• Latin incendō

Usage notes

The past participle inceso is also used as an adjective, “kindled, ardent”, in the literal and figurative senses.^[15] Zingarelli records the obsolete participles inceso and incenso.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
6. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1984
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 552
15. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli