levare

Forms

levare (first-person singular present lèvo, first-person singular past historic levài, past participle levàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian also had forms with the diphthong, such as lievo and lieva, and an infinitive lievare.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin levō (“to lighten; to raise”), a verb formed from levis (“light”).^[5][6][7][1] The verb is found in every Romance language: French lever, Occitan levar, Catalan llevar, Spanish llevar and Portuguese levar “to carry”, Sardinian lear “to carry” and Romanian lua “to take”.^[6][8] The DÉRom reconstructs a Proto-Romance verb with the senses “remove”, “take”, “raise” and “carry”, and counts “remove” and “take”, found in Sardinian and Romanian as well as in the west, among the oldest.^[9] In Romanian, southern Italian, Dalmatian, Logudorese, Spanish and Portuguese the verb means “take” or “take away”.^[8]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ-u- (“light”), with the variant Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʰ-u- that Latin continues.^[10] DELI notes that the Latin verb already meant “to get up from bed” in the Rule of Saint Benedict.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Florentine account book of 1211, with the sense “to take away, remove”.^[5][6][7] The reflexive “to get up from bed” is in Giacomo da Lentini and “to go away” in Cielo d'Alcamo, both before 1250.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to raise, lift” is in Iacopone da Todi (before 1306), and Dante has the pronominal levarsi for the rising of a star or a wind.^[5] From this came levante, the point where the sun rises, the east, and then the Levant, the lands east of Italy (Boccaccio, 1348–53); the word passed to French and Spanish.^[5][8] The drawbridge, ponte levatoio, is in the Novellino at the end of the 13th century, from Medieval Latin pons levatorius.^[5][6] Old uses now gone include enlisting soldiers, taking passengers on board, and lifting a child from the font at baptism, that is, standing godparent.^[2][11]

DEI records regional senses: in Tuscan “to lighten”, in dialects the rising of bread dough, as with French se lever, and in the south “to take a wife”, as with Latin tollere uxorem.^[12] Levata di scudi, a sudden revolt, follows French levée de boucliers (from 1835), which goes back to the way Roman troops showed opposition to their commander.^[5] In modern Italian levare “to remove” is common in Tuscany and the centre, where other regions prefer togliere; the infinitive used as a noun is the rising of a star and, in music, the upbeat (in levare).^[13][11]

Timeline

• 1211 – A Florentine account book uses levare “to remove”.^[5]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses levarsi “to get up”.^[5]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino has ponte levatoio.^[5]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni writes sol levante and levante “east”.^[5]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone da Todi uses levare “to raise”.^[5]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses levarsi of a rising star.^[5]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses Levante for the eastern Mediterranean and levatura.^[5]
• 1551 – Levatrice “midwife” appears in a Florentine document.^[5]
• 1835 – Carlo Botta writes levata d'insegne.^[5]
• 1863 – Levataccia, getting up very early, is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To raise, to lift: Levò il calice verso gli invitati.^[7][14][11]
2. To take away, to remove; to take off clothing: Leva i libri dal tavolo.^[7][14][11]
3. To pull out, to extract: Domani mi levano un dente.^[7][14]
4. To abolish or lift a ban, a tax, a sitting: levare il divieto.^[2][3]
5. To raise one's voice in prayer, praise or complaint: levare una supplica.^[7][13]
6. (hunting) To flush game.^[7][13]
7. (archaic) To enlist soldiers.^[7][2]
8. levarsi: to get up, especially from bed: Mi levo presto d'estate.^[11][14]
9. levarsi: of the sun, a wind and the like, to rise.^[11][5]

Noun

1. The rising of a star: al levar del sole.^[11][15]
2. (music) The upbeat, the weak beat of the bar shown by the conductor's hand.^[11]

Word family

• allevare
• leva
• levante
• levata
• levatrice
• levatura
• rilevare
• sollevare
• levantino
• levataccia
• levatoio

Related words

• lieve
• Latin levis
• French lever

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include levare le tende, to leave, levare di mezzo, to get rid of (and euphemistically to kill), levare il disturbo, to take one's leave, and levarsi il pane di bocca, to make great sacrifices for someone.^[2][13][14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
4. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 588
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2216
13. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET