lepre

Forms

lepre f (plural lepri)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian lepore, Old Italian levre, Old Italian lievre and Old Italian lievore.^[2][3] The Latin masculine survives in the north-east and the south, as in Venetian lievro and Sicilian lebbru.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin leporem (“hare”), the accusative of the Latin word, with the post-tonic /o/ dropped.^{[3][6][7][8][1]} The word is found throughout Romance: French lièvre, Occitan lebre, Catalan llebre, Spanish liebre, Portuguese lebre, Sardinian leppore and Romanian iepure.^[6][1] The Latin noun was masculine;^[5][6] Tuscany and much of northern Italy made it feminine, as did the Iberian languages, Catalan and Occitan, while the north-east and the south kept the masculine.^[5][6]

The Old Italian forms levre and lievre, found in Bono Giamboni and in Dante, came from Old French lievre or from the north, and the 14th-century poets used the learned form lepore.^[4][3][2]

The Latin noun is not Indo-European.^[9] Pliny calls Ancient Greek λεβηρίς (lebērís, “rabbit”) a word of Massilia, which suggests an Iberian source, though the word might also come from a substrate in Italy itself.^[9][1] DELI follows Bertoldi in seeing a Libyco-Iberian substrate word, Nocentini a pre-Latin word that also gave French lapin (“rabbit”), and Battisti and Alessio a Mediterranean relic.^[3][6][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Monza Glossary of the 10th century, for the animal.^[2] In literature DELI's first record is Dante, before 1321.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used lepre for the meat as well as the animal.^[2] Franco Sacchetti called it the most fearful of animals, which flees at the rustle of leaves in the wind, and timidity and speed remain its marks in similes: correre come una lepre, pauroso come una lepre.^[11][7] Older phrases include dormire come una lepre, with eyes open, always on guard, and pigliare la lepre col carro, to go about something with great caution.^[12] Manzoni's qui giace la lepre means “here lies the crux”.^[13]

The sea hare, a mollusc, was lepre marino from 1345, after Latin lepus marinus;^[2][10] lepre marina was also a mocking name for the city of Pisa.^[2][10] Modern sport made the hare a pacemaker in distance running, and the space age a target vehicle for orbital rendezvous.^[7][12]

Timeline

• 10th century – Lepre is recorded in the Monza Glossary.^[2]
• 12th century – The place names Lepraia and Leporaia are recorded.^[10]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the French-type form lievre.^[3]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses lepre.^[3]
• 1345 – Lepre marino “sea hare” appears in an anonymous Tuscan poem.^[2]
• 1434–1449 – A masculine lepere appears in a Roman recipe book.^[3]
• 1560 – Leprotto “young hare” appears in Tansillo.^[3]
• 1858 – The sense “hare meat” is dated from Guadagnoli.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hare: a wild, mostly nocturnal mammal with long ears and long hind legs for leaping, very fast and timid, hunted for its meat; especially the European hare.^[7][14][12]
2. (zoology) Lepus, the genus of hares.^[7][14]
3. Hare meat as food: lepre in salmì.^[7][8][12]
4. (figurative) A very fast runner: In campo quel ragazzo è una lepre.^[7]
5. (athletics) A pacemaker: a runner who sets a fast pace in the first part of a race so that another can win or set a record.^[7][14][8]
6. (astronautics, as an invariable adjective) Of a spacecraft that another must reach in an orbital rendezvous: satellite lepre.^[7][12]

Word family

• leprotto
• lepraio

Related words

• leporino
• Latin lepus
• French lièvre

Usage notes

Lepre is feminine in the standard language and masculine in some regions.^[14][15][12] Lepre meccanica is the mechanical hare that dogs chase at a greyhound track, and lepre di mare the sea hare, a shell-less sea snail.^[12][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 587
5. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 8, 962
6. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b 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 d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2206
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ 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
15. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli