manco

Forms

manco (feminine manca, masculine plural manchi, feminine plural manche)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mancus (“maimed, crippled; defective”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The Latin adjective first meant “maimed in the hand”: Nocentini, the OLD and Devoto derive it from manus (“hand”) with the suffix -cus of words for bodily defects, as in caecus (“blind”).^[3][6][7] De Vaan accepts the link only with a shift from “handy” to “handicapped”, and Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *mh₂n-ko- (“maimed in the hand”), adding a rival theory from *menk- (“to lack”).^[8][1]

The same word is Old French manc, Old Occitan manc, Catalan manc, Spanish manco and Portuguese manco, all meaning “one-armed”; it passed into Basque mangu (“limping”).^[3][9][5] In Italian it also gave monco, reshaped after tronco, and the feminine manca, said of the weaker hand, came to mean “the left hand”, whence mancino.^[3][9]

The adverb comes from the adjective.^[3][10] “Insufficient” became “less” in phrases such as “with insufficient bread”, and combined with the negation né it gave nemmanco “not even”, from which the simple form took on that sense in central and southern Italy.^[3] DEI notes that it replaces meno in the south.^[5] The noun “lack” is, according to GRADIT, DEI and Wiktionary, formed back from the verb mancare.^[4][1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the noun “lack”, in Ricordano Malispini's 13th-century chronicle of Florence: per manco di moneta, “for lack of money”, a great part of the army went back to Germany.^[2][11][12] The adjective “left” is in Guido Cavalcanti (before 1300).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the adjective for what is incomplete or failing: his wit seemed manco at the foot of the mountain of Purgatory, and in the Paradiso he asks about vows left manchi, unfulfilled.^[11][12] From “left”, the side of bad omens, it also meant “ill-omened”, as in Ariosto's manco ed importuno augello, “ill-omened and troublesome bird”.^[10][4]

The adverb “less” is recorded in the 15th century and the popular “not even” before 1563 (Iacopo Nardi).^[2] Tommaseo noted that educated Tuscans said meno but that manco lived on everywhere, as in the proverb Chi più mangia manco mangia.^[12] Today the adjective and the noun are literary, while the adverb “not even” is colloquial.^[4][10] The noun, through mancare, has parallels in French manque (1594) and German Manko, which DEI dates to 1712 and DIFIT to 1825.^[5][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – Ricordano Malispini uses the noun manco “lack”.^[2]
• Before 1300 – Guido Cavalcanti uses the adjective for “left”.^[2]
• 1300–1321 – Dante uses it for “defective” and “unfulfilled”.^[11]
• 15th century – Tommaso di Silvestro uses the adverb “less”.^[2][11]
• Before 1563 – Iacopo Nardi uses it for “not even”.^[2]
• 1594 – French manque is recorded.^[5]
• 1812 – Ammanco “shortfall” is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) Lacking something, imperfect, defective: un testo manco delle ultime pagine.^[4][10][14]
2. (literary) Left, on the left side: la mano manca.^[4][15][16]
3. (figurative, archaic) Ill-omened, unlucky.^[4][10][15]

Adverb

1. (colloquial) Not even: Non mi ha manco guardato.^[4][10][15]
2. (literary) Less: Oggi fa manco freddo di ieri.^[4][14][16]

Noun

1. (literary) Lack, shortage, especially of money or food.^[4][10][11]
2. (archaic) Failure to fulfil an obligation, as in Dante's manco di voto, a vow not kept.^[4][14]

Word family

• manca
• mancare
• mancino
• nemmanco
• nondimanco
• almanco
• ammanco

Related words

• monco
• mano
• Latin mancus

Usage notes

Common phrases are manco per sogno and manco per idea “not on your life”, manco male “just as well”, a manca “to the left” and the literary venir manco “to fail, faint”.^[4][16][10] As a conjunction manco means “not even if”, as in manco a dirlo “needless to say”.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2341
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 269
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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 Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli