intorno

Forms

intorno (invariable)^[1] Old Italian forms include entorno, inturno, ’ntorno and, with an enclitic pronoun, intornogli “around him”.^[2][3] Old Neapolitan had intuorno.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is formed from Italian in + torno (“turn, circuit”), first written separately.^[4][6][7][8] Torno is a noun from tornare, inherited from Latin tornō (“to turn on a lathe”).^[6][9] The same formation is Old French entor, recorded from the 12th century and later replaced by French autour, and Old Occitan entorn.^[4][10][9] Attorno is a parallel compound.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Contrasto of Cielo d'Alcamo, a Sicilian poem of 1231–1250 that survives in a Tuscan copy.^[2] DELI's first date is Dante, 1300–1313, for “round about, in the surrounding places”, and in Dante's Inferno a castle is “difeso intorno d'un bel fiumicello” (defended round about by a fair stream).^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

As a preposition, alone or in intorno a, the word came to mark the subject of a discussion or a book (“about, on”), and an approximate number or date (“around”).^[2][3][8] Dante also used it as an adjective, “surrounding”, in 1313–1319.^[4] Old Italian could attach an enclitic pronoun, as in intornogli “around him”.^[3][7]

The noun intorno, “the surrounding area”, appears in the 16th century in Castiglione and Giambullari, and Cellini used it for a raised border around a wax model.^[11] In mathematics an intorno is the neighbourhood of a point in a topological space.^[7][12][1]

Timeline

• 1231–1250 – First record, in Cielo d'Alcamo's Contrasto.^[2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the adverb.^[4]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses it as an adjective, “surrounding”.^[4]
• 14th century – Old Neapolitan intuorno.^[10]
• Early 16th century – The noun intorno “surrounding area”.^[12][11]

Meanings

Adverb

1. around, round about, in the surrounding space: Mi guardai intorno ma non c'era nessuno.^{[7][12][13][3]}
2. After qui, qua, lì or là: in the area nearby: C'è un distributore qui intorno?^[7][12][3]
3. With tutto or repeated, all around: tutt'intorno.^[7][13][3]

Preposition

1. intorno a: around, encircling: Abbiamo fatto il giro intorno al lago.^{[7][12][3][8]}
2. intorno a: about, on (a subject): un saggio intorno alla poesia di Leopardi.^[12][3][8]
3. intorno a: around, approximately (with numbers, dates and times): Arriveremo intorno alle nove.^[12][3][14]

Adjective

1. (invariable, after the noun) Surrounding, nearby: le colline intorno.^[7][12][3]

Noun

1. (mathematics) A neighbourhood of a point.^{[7][12][13][1]}
2. (chiefly plural, uncommon) The surrounding area.^[7][13][14]

Word family

• dintorno

Related words

• torno
• tornare
• attorno

Usage notes

Common phrases are guardarsi intorno (to look around), girare intorno (to beat about the bush; to court someone) and levarsi d'intorno (to get out of the way).^[7][12][8] Intorno and attorno are synonyms.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2071
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 8, 323
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli