lungi

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin longē (“far, far off”), the adverb of Latin longus (“long”).^[2][3][4][1] The adverb was formed with the ending -ē.^[1][5] The same adverb is French loin, Old Occitan luenh, Catalan lluny and Portuguese longe;^[3][6][7] Romanian has no outcome, and DEI notes that the Italian dialects lack it too.^[3][6][7] The GDLI calls the Italian word semi-learned.^[8]

De Vaan traces the adjective to Proto-Italic *(d)longo- and Proto-Indo-European *dlongh-o-, beside Gothic, Hittite and Sanskrit words for “long”.^[9] DELI notes that Italian derivatives of this family often start from the adverb rather than the adjective, as lontano does.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Chiaro Davanzati and many other 13th-century authors, with the sense “far away”.^[2] The GDLI quotes Chiaro: lungi m'ha fuor del mare, “it has cast me far out of the sea”.^[8] Zingarelli dates the word to 1268, while Nocentini and GRADIT put it in the 14th century.^[10][3][4]

Semantic evolution

Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso used the word in verse, and old texts show many forms beside lungi, such as lunge, longi and lunghi.^[8] Pietro Bembo in 1525 split them by register: da lunge and da lungi belonged to poetry, and di lungi and dalla lungi to prose.^[2] By the 19th century Tommaseo found the word rare even in writing.^[11]

It survives as a literary adverb and in the prepositional phrase lungi da, especially in figures of speech such as essere ben lungi dal doing something, “to have no intention of”.^[12][10] It is also the first part of compounds such as lungimirante “far-sighted” (1918).^[2][12]

Timeline

• 1200s – Chiaro Davanzati uses lungi.^[2][13]
• 1268 – Zingarelli's date for the first record.^[10]
• 1525 – Bembo sorts the forms into poetic and prose use.^[2]
• 1918 – Lungimirante is recorded.^[2][3]
• 1942 – Lungimiranza is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (literary) far, far away, in space or less often in time: La città non era molto lungi.^[4][14][10]
2. (literary) da lungi, di lungi: from afar, in the distance.^[14][10]
3. lungi da: far from; also figurative: è ben lungi dal vero.^[14][15][1]

Word family

• lungimirante
• lungimiranza

Related words

• lungo
• lontano
• Latin longe
• French loin

Usage notes

Lunge is the archaic variant.^[14][16][1] The phrase lungi da me (“far be it from me”) is often jocular.^[10][15] Old Italian also had a lungi and lungi a before an infinitive or a noun.^[12][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 e 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2286
8. ^ 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. 9, 294
9. ^ 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 e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
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. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse