Etymologically
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lunedì

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Pronunciation

Forms

lunedì m (invariable)[1] Old Italian had lunidie, lunedie and lunidì, and older dialect forms include lune and luni.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Lūnae diēs (“day of the Moon”), made of lūna (“moon”) and diēs (“day”).[2][4][5][1] The name comes from astrology: the Moon was thought to rule the first hour of the day.[6][7][8][3] The names of the weekdays after the heavenly bodies belong to a Greek astronomical calendar of Semitic origin, which became established at Rome in the 2nd century AD and spread by loan or calque to the Celtic and Germanic languages.[4]

The word is panromance: French lundi, Occitan diluns, Catalan dilluns, Spanish lunes, Sardinian lunis and Romanian luni.[4] Catalan keeps the original order “day + Moon”, from a Late Latin form with the genitive ⟨Lunis⟩ made on the model of ⟨Martis⟩; the reversed order spread from Old French lunsdi, perhaps under the influence of Germanic, as in Old High German mānatag, German Montag and English Monday.[4][9] Spanish, Sardinian and Romanian use the short form, while Portuguese segunda-feira follows the Christian count of days from Sunday.[4]

Latin lūna goes back to Proto-Italic ⟨*louksnā-⟩ and Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“light, bright”), an epithet of the moon meaning “shining”.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is lunidie in the Sienese account book of Mattasala di Spinello, of the 13th century: Ebeli lunidie x die a l'escita di genaio “I had them on Monday, the tenth day at the end of January”.[2][3] The form lunedì appears in Restoro d'Arezzo in 1282.[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

Monday is the first day of the civil week but the second of the Church's, which counts from Sunday.[5][6][8] Workers who had to work on Sunday took Monday off, and Old Italian called this rest day lunediana; wool workers, who were paid on Monday, were said to fare la lunediana.[4][3][9]

The Church calendar names particular Mondays: lunedì santo in Holy Week, lunedì dell'Angelo after Easter, popularly Pasquetta, and lunedì grasso, the last Monday of Carnival.[5][6][11]

Timeline

  • 12th century – Old French lunsdi is recorded.[9]
  • 13th century – Lunidie appears in the account book of Mattasala di Spinello.[2]
  • 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo writes lunedì.[2][4]
  • Before 1665 – Lunediana, the workers' Monday holiday, is recorded.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Monday: the first day of the civil week and the second of the liturgical week: Il negozio resta chiuso il lunedì.[5][6][7][1]

Word family

  • lunediana

Usage notes

Lunedì is masculine and invariable.[5][1] With the article it means “every Monday” (il lunedì, also di lunedì), without it a particular Monday (ci vediamo lunedì).[7][8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  3. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  8. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2285
  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. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli