Etymologically
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indovinare

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Pronunciation

  • /in.do.viˈna.re/[1]

Forms

indovinare (first-person singular present indovìno, first-person singular past historic indovinài, past participle indovinàto, auxiliary avére)[1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *indivināre, made from Latin dīvīnāre (“to foretell, prophesy”) with the prefix in-.[2][3][4][5] The Latin verb is a derivative of dīvīnus (“divine; prophetic”).[3][6] GRADIT and Sabatini take the prefix as intensive or perfective, Nocentini as locative.[4][7][3] DELI notes that the derivatives were formed in Italian, though old writers such as Francesco da Barberino (1314) wrote indivino and so still felt the tie to the Latin family.[2]

The first ⟨i⟩ became ⟨o⟩ before the stress: Devoto explains it as a dissimilation of ⟨i…i⟩ to ⟨o…i⟩ helped by the following /v/, as in doventare for diventare and dovizia from Latin dīvitiae (“riches”).[8][3][7] The older form indivinare is the one Dante da Maiano used.[9][1]

The verb is French deviner, Occitan devinar, Catalan endevinar, Spanish adivinar and Portuguese adivinhar.[3][10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI and the TLIO's first record is the Sienese poet Ruggieri Apugliese, in the first half or middle of the 13th century, who boasts of knowing astrology and the planets and how indovinar cose segrete, “to divine secret things”.[2][11][12] The sense is to know and declare the future or the unknown by inspiration or by divination.[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already widened the sense to foreseeing an event by intuition or reasoning, and to guessing something unknown.[11] The derivative indovino, a soothsayer, is recorded from Bono Giamboni before 1292, and indovinello, a riddle, from Boccaccio in 1362–64.[2] Tommaseo set it against the learned divinare, which kept only the noble senses, while indovinare had the familiar ones.[13]

The sense “to get something right, hit on the right choice” is recorded only in 1884, and Panzini in 1905 found that it recalled French deviner too closely, though it was very widely used.[2] Modern Italian has many set phrases: tirare a indovinare, to answer at random hoping to be right, and non indovinarne una, said of someone who gets everything wrong.[4][5][14]

Timeline

  • First half of the 13th century – Ruggieri Apugliese uses indovinare “to divine”.[2][11]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni has indovino “soothsayer”.[2]
  • 1362–1364 – Boccaccio uses indovinello “riddle”.[2]
  • 1884 – The sense “to hit the mark, choose well” is recorded.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To guess: to find out or understand something unknown by intuition, chance or clues: Indovina chi ho visto ieri![4][5][7]
  2. To solve a riddle or a puzzle correctly: Ha indovinato la parola nascosta.[4][5]
  3. To make the right choice, to get something right: Abbiamo indovinato il ristorante.[4][7][15]
  4. To foretell or divine the future by soothsaying: Diceva di saper indovinare la sorte.[4][5][16]

Word family

  • indovinello
  • indovino
  • indovinabile
  • indovinamento
  • indovinatore
  • indovinatorio
  • indovinazione

Usage notes

The phrases chi l'indovina è bravo and indovinala grillo express that something is hard to work out or foresee.[4][15] The archaic form indivinare appears in old texts.[5][14]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2007
  7. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 231
  9. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 556
  10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  11. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  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. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli