invenire

Forms

invenire (first-person singular present invèngo, first-person singular past historic invénni or invènni, past participle invenùto, first-person singular future inverrò, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian also wrote invinire and envenire.^[2]

Etymology

It is a learned word: it is borrowed from Latin inveniō (“to come upon; to find”).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} The verb is formed from Latin in- + veniō (“to come”), literally “to come in” or “to come upon” something.^[6][7][2][1] The DEI compares the same image in German ich komme auf etwas (“I come upon something”) and in a Russian verb of the same make-up.^[3]

veniō goes back to Proto-Italic *gʷeniō and to a present Proto-Indo-European *gʷm̥yéti, from the root *gʷem- (“to come”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the first record before 1250, and GRADIT and Devoto–Oli to the second half of the 13th century.^[6][4][5] The first quotation in the GDLI is from an anonymous poet, who grieves like one who has lost something and struggles to find it again: che si pena trovare / la cosa c’à perduta, / se la potè invenire.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the verb meant “to find” and, in Tuscan texts, also “to prove that a crime had been committed”, and the past participle invenuto was in use.^[3] Guittone d’Arezzo has the form envegno and Iacopone da Todi envenire, in a line where weeping, sighing, reading and prayer do not help the poet to find the one he addresses.^[2] In the GDLI the verb also means “to bring to light” and “to attain, obtain”.^[2]

From the 16th century it was used for “to invent”, the sense of inventare.^[3][9] The DEI records the verb from the 13th to the 16th century, and Tommaseo already marks it obsolete.^[3][9] Later poets and writers revived it as a Latinism: Vincenzo Monti writes of Galatea who “found the first pearl” in a shell (La prima perla invenne), and Papini of the need to “invent a new art”.^[7]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – First record of invenire.^[6]
• 13th century – The past participle invenuto and the legal sense “to prove a crime” appear in Tuscan texts.^[3]
• 16th century – The verb is used for “to invent”.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic, literary) To find or discover, especially after searching: invenire la verità.^[4][5][6][1]
2. (archaic, figurative) To invent or devise.^[4][6][7]

Word family

• invenimento

Related words

• venire
• rinvenire
• inventare
• invenzione
• inventore
• Latin inveniō

Usage notes

The verb is conjugated like venire (invengo, invenni, invenuto).^[5][7][1] The DEI notes that it was still alive in the dialect of Lucca.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 8, 405
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2080
4. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d 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 c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ 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)
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET