levante

Forms

levante m (plural levanti)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian levanto and Old Italian livanti.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Italian levare (“to raise”): its present participle, said of the sun as it rises, so that the word came to name the part of the sky where the sun comes up.^[3][4][5][6] Nocentini counts it as an Italian formation, the counterpart of oriente and the opposite of ponente.^[4] It matches the accusative Latin levantem (“raising”), with the rising of the sun in mind.^[1] DEI sees the Latin model in oriēns (“rising; the east”), the participle of a verb for the rising of the sun.^[7]

The same participle stands behind French levant, recorded as an adjective from the 12th century and as a noun from the 14th,^[7] and behind Spanish levante and Portuguese levante.^[4] Nocentini treats these as parallel formations,^[4] while Meyer-Lübke took the French, Spanish and Portuguese words to be borrowed from Italian.^[8] As the name of a wind the Italian word spread to the other languages of culture: French had levante in 1549.^[7]

The verb levare is levō (“to lighten; to raise”), formed from levis (“light”).^[3][4][9] De Vaan traces levis through Proto-Italic to the adjective Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ-u- (“light”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is first recorded in the 13th century in the poems of the Anonimo Genovese, and before 1292 in Bono Giamboni, for the part of the horizon where the sun is seen to rise.^[3][4] Giamboni also uses the participle in sol levante, the rising sun: a house front should be turned contra lo sole levante (towards the rising sun).^[3][10][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian levante was still a participle meaning “raising”: an early version of Ovid has a man levante le mani al cielo (raising his hands to heaven).^[11] Boccaccio uses it as an adjective, “that rises”, in 1344.^[3] Dante places the east with inver Levante (towards the east) in the Inferno, and Tommaseo also records a winter and a summer levante, the points where the sun rises in each season.^[11]

Two senses followed in Boccaccio: the lands east of Italy around the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, in the Decameron (1348–53), and the east wind, before 1375.^[3] The trade with the Levant made the region a common destination, as in Machiavelli's tale of a brother sent in Levante with cloth.^[11] In the 15th and 16th centuries andare in levante and venir di levante meant “to steal”, a pun on levare in its sense “to take away”.^[7][10]

Today the adjective survives almost only in sol levante, and the Impero del Sol Levante is Japan.^[5][12] German took the word as Levante in the 15th century, first for the wind and then for the region, and formed levantisch (1806).^[13]

Timeline

• 13th century – The Anonimo Genovese uses levante for the east.^[3]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses the noun and sol levante “the rising sun”.^[3]
• 1344 – Boccaccio uses levante as an adjective, “rising”.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – The Decameron uses Levante for the eastern Mediterranean lands.^[3]
• Before 1375 – Boccaccio uses levante for the east wind.^[3]
• 15th century – German Levante is recorded for the wind and then for the region.^[13]
• 15th–16th centuries – Andare in levante means “to steal”.^[7]
• 1549 – French levante is recorded as the name of the wind.^[7]
• 1806 – German levantisch is recorded.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The east, the part of the horizon where the sun rises, opposed to ponente: La terrazza guarda a levante.^[14][5][15]
2. The east wind, short for vento di levante.^[14][5][16]
3. (usually capitalised) The Levant, the countries of the eastern Mediterranean, especially Greece and Turkey: Il mercante tornava dal Levante con spezie.^[14][15][16]

Adjective

1. (literary) Rising, of the sun; now mostly in sol levante and Impero del Sol Levante, Japan.^[5][12][17]

Word family

• levantino

Related words

• levare
• lieve
• Latin levis
• French levant

Usage notes

Di levante means “lying to the east” of a point: the Riviera di Levante is the Ligurian coast east of Genoa.^[14][15][5] In the sense of the eastern Mediterranean the word is usually written with a capital, il Levante.^[16][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 8
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2216
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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 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 Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
14. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli