laico

Forms

laico (feminine laica, masculine plural laici, feminine plural laiche)^[1] The old form Old Italian ladico has, with an inserted -d-, and forms such as Old Italian ladego and Old Italian laigo.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin lāicus (“of the people, lay”), a learned word.^[3][5][6][1] The Church took the Latin word (it is in Tertullian and the Vulgate) from Ancient Greek λαϊκός (laïkós, “of the people”), which in Church Greek meant “profane, secular”, a derivative of λαός (laós, “people”).^[3][5][7]

The popular outcomes are Old French lai, Old Occitan laic, Catalan llec, Spanish lego and Portuguese leigo.^[5][4][8] In Spanish and Portuguese these mean “profane, ignorant”, and the learned laico took the neutral sense “not clerical”.^[5] French replaced it with the learned French laïque, because the old word sounded like laid “ugly”.^[5] The word also spread with Christianity into Old High German laigo, modern German Laie.^[7]

laicizzare and laicizzazione are modelled on French laïciser and laïcisation.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Parlamenti of Guido Faba (Bologna, about 1243), with the sense “not belonging to the Church hierarchy”.^[2] GRADIT dates the word to the first half of the 13th century;^[6][3] DELI's first Italian record is in Passavanti in 1354, after the Medieval Latin layci seculares of Salimbene (1281–1288).^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the noun in the Inferno for a sinner so filthy that one cannot tell whether he was laico o cherco (“layman or cleric”).^[3][9] Since learning was then almost a monopoly of the clergy, the medieval word often implied “uneducated, illiterate”, in particular “not knowing Latin”.^[10][2] Old Italian also used it for “worldly” and for “non-Christian, pagan”.^[2] The lay brother of a religious order, who has not taken holy orders, is laico in the Fioretti di San Francesco.^[3]

From the 19th century the word took a political sense: in 1869 Tommaseo records it as “inspired by laicism”, the doctrine that the state and its citizens should be independent of the Church, which Carducci named laicismo in 1863.^[3] In 20th-century Italian politics the partiti laici were the parties that claimed independence from both Catholic and Marxist doctrine.^[6][11] In law, a membro laico of a body is one who does not belong to the profession it represents, such as the members of the Consiglio superiore della magistratura elected by Parliament.^[12][11][13]

Timeline

• c. 1243 – Laico appears in Guido Faba's Parlamenti (Bologna).^[2]
• 1281–1288 – Salimbene writes Medieval Latin layci seculares and frater laicus.^[3]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the noun, contrasted with cherco.^[3]
• Before 1342 – Laicale appears in Cavalca.^[3][5]
• 1354 – Passavanti uses the adjective “not of the clergy”.^[3]
• 1300s – The Fioretti di San Francesco use laico for a lay brother.^[3]
• 1863 – Carducci uses laicismo.^[3][5]
• 1869 – Tommaseo records laico “inspired by laicism”, laicità and laicato.^[3]
• 1886 – Laicizzare appears in a newspaper.^[3]
• 1905 – Laicizzazione is recorded.^[3][5]
• Before 1937 – Gramsci uses laicista.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. lay: not belonging to the clergy, not having taken holy orders: un'associazione laica di volontari.^{[6][14][15][12][11]}
2. (religion) Of a member of a religious community who is not ordained: frate laico, a lay brother.^{[6][14][15][11]}
3. secular, independent of the Church or any religious denomination: Stato laico, scuola laica.^{[6][14][15][12][11]}
4. (by extension) Not bound to any rigid ideology: partiti laici.^{[6][14][12][13]}
5. (law) Not belonging to the judiciary or to the profession a body represents: giudice laico, membro laico del Consiglio superiore della magistratura.^{[14][12][11][13]}
6. (uncommon) Not expert in a field or subject, an outsider to it.^[15]
7. (obsolete) Uneducated, illiterate.^[15][12][13]

Noun

1. A layman, one who does not belong to the clergy.^{[6][14][15][12][11]}
2. A lay brother.^{[14][12][11][13]}
3. A supporter of laicismo, a secularist.^{[14][15][12][11]}

Word family

• laicità
• laicismo
• laicista
• laicale
• laicato
• laicizzare
• laicizzazione
• laicamente
• laicistico

Related words

• French laïque
• Spanish lego
• Latin laicus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 l m n o p q r s Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2153
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse