mancare

Forms

mancare (first-person singular present mànco, first-person singular past historic mancài, past participle mancàto, auxiliary (transitive and in some intransitive meanings) avére or (in other intransitive meanings) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Italian manco (“defective, lacking”) + -are.^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary also allows that it may continue Vulgar Latin *mancāre, and Latin did have a rare verb mancō formed from the adjective.^[1] The adjective manco is mancus (“maimed, crippled in the hand; defective”), formed from manus (“hand”) with the suffix of bodily defects seen in caecus (“blind”).^[5][6] De Vaan accepts the link with “hand” only with a shift from “handy” to “handicapped”, and Wiktionary mentions a rival derivation from Proto-Indo-European *menk- (“to lack”).^[7][1] From the same adjective, influenced by truncus (“maimed”), comes monco, and its feminine gave manca “left hand” and mancino “left-handed”.^[8][5]

French manquer was borrowed from Italian;^[9][10][8] DEI dates it 1564, while the DIFIT finds it in 1398.^[9][10][8] DEI thinks Spanish mancar probably came from Italian too, but Nocentini regards the Spanish verb, which means “to maim”, as a parallel formation.^[9][5] It also passed into German mankieren, through French.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in Dante, between 1300 and 1313, in the sense “to be lacking, not to be enough”.^[11][2] In Inferno 24 the peasant “whose provisions run short” (a cui la roba manca) looks out and sees the fields white with frost.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Dante's Convivio (1304–1308) the verb means “to be without something”, and in the Commedia “to fail, give out”.^[11] The chronicle of the Malispini uses it for wasting away, a 14th-century Bible translation for dying, and Petrarch for being absent and, in 1374, for fainting.^[11] Castiglione used it before 1529 for omitting something.^[11]

The transitive use “to miss (a target)” appears in a 14th-century translation of Livy, but purists of the 19th century condemned it as a Gallicism: D'Ayala in 1853 called mancò il colpo “a very bad phrase”.^[11] Tommaseo's dictionary records “to be at fault” in 1869.^[11] Today the verb also expresses missing a person, as in mi manchi, and the phrase venire a mancare is a gentle way of saying “to die”.^[13][4][2]

Timeline

• 1300–1313 – Dante uses mancare for “to be lacking”.^[11][2]
• 1304–1308 – In the Convivio it means “to be without something”.^[11]
• 1374 – Petrarch uses it for fainting.^[11]
• 14th century – A translation of Livy has the transitive “to miss”.^[11]
• 1398 – French manquer is first recorded, according to the DIFIT.^[10]
• 1853 – D'Ayala condemns mancare il colpo as a bad phrase.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, with essere) To be lacking or missing; not to be enough: In casa manca il latte.^[2][3][13]
2. (intransitive, with avere) To be without, to lack: Il ragazzo non manca di talento.^[14][15][1]
3. Of time or distance, to remain before a point: Mancano tre giorni a Natale.^[2][13][15]
4. To be absent or away: Lucia manca dall'ufficio da lunedì.^[13][4][1]
5. Of a person or thing, to be missed: Mi mancano i miei amici.^[13][4][1]
6. Of strength or a supply, to fail, give out: A metà salita gli mancò il fiato.^[2][4][14]
7. To faint: sentirsi mancare.^[2][4]
8. (euphemistic) To die: venire a mancare.^[2][16]
9. To fail to keep a promise or duty: mancare di parola.^[2][1]
10. (transitive) To miss a target or chance: Il centravanti ha mancato il rigore.^[13][1][11]

Word family

• mancanza
• immancabile
• mancamento
• mancante
• mancato
• manchevole

Related words

• monco
• mancino
• French manquer
• Latin mancus

Usage notes

Ci mancherebbe altro! can reject an unwelcome possibility (“heaven forbid!”) or, as a polite reply, mean “of course, don't mention it”.^[2][3] In the sense “to be lacking” the verb takes essere, in the sense “to lack something” avere.^[14][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2340
10. ^ a b c d Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 9, 602
13. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org