Etymologically
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marina

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Pronunciation

Forms

marina f (plural marine)[1]

Etymology

It is from Italian marino (“of the sea”): the feminine of the adjective, used as a noun.[2][3][4][5] The adjective is inherited from Latin marīnus (“of the sea”), from mare (“sea”).[3][1] The same noun is Occitan marina, Catalan marina, Spanish marina and Portuguese marinha.[3][6]

The sense “navy” came in the 19th century, after French marine.[3][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the northern Leggenda di Santa Caterina (12th–13th century), with marina for the stretch of sea along a land: the saint lived in Alexandria ultra la marina.[2][9] Bono Giamboni, before 1292, uses it for the land along the sea.[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian marina meant the sea, often the sea near the coast;[2][9] Dante, waking at dawn in the Purgatorio, sees from afar il tremolar de la marina “the trembling of the sea”.[2][9] It also meant the coast and a town that grew up on it, as in Marina di Pisa.[2][4][5] From the 15th century a marina is a painting of the sea (Ghiberti, before 1455).[2]

From the 17th century the word took in the ships and equipment of a state (1653), and in the 19th century the navy and merchant fleet as a body, a sense the purists wanted to replace with marineria.[2][3] English took marina in the sense “seashore” in 1798; in the United States it came to mean a small harbour for yachts (1934), and that sense returned to Italian.[10][4]

Timeline

  • 12th–13th century – The Leggenda di Santa Caterina uses marina for the sea along a land.[2]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for the coastal region.[2]
  • 1313–1319 – Dante uses it for the sea itself.[2]
  • Before 1455 – Lorenzo Ghiberti uses it for a seascape.[2]
  • 1653 – The word is used for a state's ships and naval equipment.[2]
  • 1798 – English marina “seashore” is recorded.[10]
  • 1848 – Ugolini condemns marina “navy” as a newspaper word.[2]
  • 1934 – American English marina “small harbour” is recorded.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The stretch of sea along a coast, seen especially as a view: Dalla terrazza si vede tutta la marina.[4][5][11]
  2. The land along the sea; the coast or shore, and a coastal town, often in place names (Marina di Ravenna).[4][8][11]
  3. (art) A seascape: a painting of the sea.[4][5][8]
  4. The fleet of a country and everything that serves it at sea; the navy: Suo fratello si è arruolato in marina.[4][5][8]

Word family

  • marinaio
  • marinaro
  • marineria
  • marinista
  • ammarinare
  • marinesco

Usage notes

Marina mercantile is the merchant navy and marina militare the navy.[11][4] A separate marina, masculine or feminine, is a small harbour for pleasure boats: it was borrowed in the 20th century from American English, which had it from Italian and Spanish.[4][5][11][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  5. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  7. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2368
  8. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ a b c 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli