lessare

Forms

lessare (first-person singular present lésso, first-person singular past historic lessài, past participle lessàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin ēlixāre (“to boil”), a verb recorded in Apicius.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The LEI treats it as classical Latin and notes that it survives only in Italo-Romance and in Friulian lessâ: the popular forms lost the initial vowel and changed ⟨x⟩ to ⟨ss⟩, while rare learned forms keep both.^[7][8] Old Paduan had alexare in 1302.^[5][6]

The Latin verb is formed from Latin ex- and lixa (“hot water; lye”).^{[9][10][11][12]} Wiktionary derives it from the adjective ēlixus (“boiled”).^[1] De Vaan takes the noun to be the feminine of an adjective “fluid”, built on the root of liqueō (“to be liquid”), from Proto-Indo-European *u̯l(e)ikʷ-s-; the adjective first meant “boiling out”.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the sermons of Fra Giordano da Pisa (1302–1305), in the sense “to cook food in boiling water”: he finds roast fish migliori e più saporiti than fish lessi nell’acqua (“boiled in water”).^[2][14][6]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio's Decameron has a couple dine on salt meat that she had set aside and boiled, che da parte aveva fatta lessare.^[6][15] The Italian version of Crescenzi on agriculture (about 1350) boils barley before roasting it, and the Florentine pharmacopoeia of 1499 calls cooking simple medicines in a liquid or vapour lessare and cooking them dry arrostire.^[7][6] Salvini uses the verb without an object in 1728.^[7]

The verb lives in the dialects from Ticino and Venice to Abruzzo and Bari: Venetian lessar, Triestine lesar, Bari lessà.^[7] DEI dates the derivatives lessato and lessatura to the 17th century and lessata to the 19th.^[5]

Timeline

• 1302 – Old Paduan alexare is recorded.^[5]
• 1302–1305 – Fra Giordano da Pisa uses lessare.^[2][4][14]
• c. 1350 – The Italian version of Crescenzi uses the verb.^[7]
• c. 1370 – Boccaccio uses it in the Decameron.^[7]
• 1452 – Paduan lexare appears in Michele Savonarola.^[7]
• 1499 – The Florentine pharmacopoeia defines lessare against arrostire.^[6]
• 1728 – Salvini uses the verb without an object.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To boil, cook in boiling water: Prima di condirli, lessa i fagiolini per dieci minuti.^{[4][9][10][11][1]}

Word family

• lessatura
• lessamento
• lessata
• lessatore

Related words

• lesso
• lisciva
• Latin lixa

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2209
6. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 21, 359
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET