inviare

Forms

inviare (first-person singular present invìo, first-person singular past historic inviài, past participle inviàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old form Old Italian enviare is recorded in Guittone d'Arezzo.^[2][3]

Etymology

DELI takes it as a learned word, borrowed from Late Latin inviāre, a compound of the prefix in- (“into”) with a verb formed from Latin via (“road, way”).^[2][4] In Late Latin the verb meant “to go along a road” (Solinus); the Italian sense “to put on the way, send” is the reverse of deviare.^[5][6][7] Nocentini instead sees a Romance formation, Vulgar Latin *inviāre built on the same noun with the locative prefix.^[8] The second view fits the cognates French envoyer, Occitan enviar, Catalan enviar, Spanish enviar and Portuguese enviar, which all mean “to send”.^[8][6][1]

The Latin noun itself is the ordinary word for “road”, recorded from the Twelve Tables on.^[9] The noun invio “dispatch” is a back-formation from the verb.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the old form enviare in Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294, in the sense of putting someone on the road towards a goal: a sweet way “that sends a man to so pleasant a place”.^[2][3] Dante has inviare before 1321, in the line questi ne 'nvieranno a li alti gradi (“these will set us on the way to the high steps”).^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The old sense was “to put on the road, guide”, and the reflexive inviarsi meant “to set out”, as in Petrarch and Poliziano.^[7][10] From this came the modern sense “to send” a person or a thing to someone or somewhere, which is the main one today;^[11][4] Della Casa writes of having “sent” a gentleman to the French king.^[11][4] A sense “to torment”, once drawn from a passage of Sercambi, is a misreading of noiare.^[2]

The past participle inviato became a noun for an envoy sent by a government (1677), and inviato speciale, a newspaper's special correspondent, is recorded in 1910.^[2] The noun invio “dispatch” dates from before 1676 and “a consignment of goods” from 1894 (D'Annunzio).^[2]

Timeline

• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the old form enviare.^[2][4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses inviare.^[2]
• Before 1676 – Invio “dispatch” is first recorded.^[2]
• 1677 – Inviato “envoy” is recorded.^[2]
• 1869 – Inviabile “that can be sent” appears in Tommaseo–Bellini.^[2]
• 1910 – Inviato speciale “special correspondent” appears in Il Gazzettino.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To send or dispatch something to a person or a place: Ho inviato il modulo ieri sera.^[4][12][13]
2. To send someone somewhere with a task: inviare un rappresentante.^[4][12][10]
3. (figurative) To direct or address a thought, a greeting or a look: inviare un saluto.^[4][12]
4. (archaic) To set someone on the right road, guide.^[4][12][7]
5. (literary, inviarsi) To set out, start on one's way.^[10][13][7]

Word family

• inviato
• invio
• inviabile
• rinviare
• rinvio

Related words

• via
• avviare
• deviare
• French envoyer

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
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. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2083
6. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
7. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse