mane

Forms

mane f (invariable)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin māne (“in the morning; morning”), according to DELI and the GDLI a learned word.^[2][3] Wiktionary instead treats it as inherited.^[1] DELI notes that it is still fully alive in Corsica and in Gallura, in Sardinia.^[2] The Latin word is the neuter of the adjective mānis, a variant of mānus (“good”), so that it meant at first “at a good (hour)”, that is “early”.^[2][4][5][6] Treccani explains the Latin adverb as a locative case.^[6]

The same word lives on in the Romance languages, usually as “tomorrow” or “morning”: Romanian mâine “tomorrow”, Old French main, Old Occitan ma, Friulian man and the Engadine form maun.^[4][7] Old Venetian and Old Paduan man meant “at once”.^[8][7] Through Latin phrases with dē and with ista (“this”) it is the source of domani and of stamane.^[4][9]

The adjective is traced to Proto-Indo-European *meh₂- (“to ripen, mature”), the root of Latin mātūrus (“ripe”) and of the dawn goddess Mātūta.^[1] Devoto saw the link between “good” and “morning” in the time that moves from darkness towards light, as fruit moves from unripe to ripe.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Iacopone da Todi, before 1306: la mane el fior è nato, la sera el v’è seccato “in the morning the flower is born, in the evening it has withered”.^[2][3] Zingarelli dates the word to 1268.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used mane as a plain word for the morning, mostly opposed to sera “evening”, as in Dante's Qui è da man, quando di là è sera.^[6][12] The GDLI quotes it from Angiolieri, Poliziano and later writers down to Pellico, Tommaseo and Carducci.^[3] The Crescenzi translation has da mane “in the morning”.^[13]

By the 19th century the word lived on in the compound stamane and, in writing, in the phrase da mane a sera.^[12][2] Today it is literary and survives almost only in that phrase, “all day long, continually”, and in stamane and dimane.^[14][6][15]

Timeline

• 1268 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[11]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone da Todi uses mane “morning”.^[2][3]
• Early 14th century – Stamane “this morning” is recorded.^[4]
• 1316–1321 – Dante writes e mane e sera in the Paradiso.^[11][12]
• 1861 – Tommaseo records the word as alive only in stamane and in written da mane a sera.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) morning; used only in the singular: Partimmo questa mane.^{[5][11][6][1]}
2. da mane a sera – from morning to evening, all day long; continually: Studia da mane a sera.^{[5][14][11][16]}

Word family

• stamane
• stamani

Related words

• domani
• mattino
• Latin mane

Usage notes

GRADIT has a second mane, a technical word recorded before 1729 and used mostly in the plural, often capitalised: the Manes, the spirits of the dead revered by the Romans as the souls of relatives and ancestors, and also the soul of an illustrious person.^[5] It comes from Latin Mānēs, from archaic mānus “good”.^[5][4]

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, p. 9, 635
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2343
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 269
11. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
14. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli