Etymologically
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membro

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈmem.bro/, /ˈmɛm.bro/[1]

Forms

membro m (plural (in most meanings) membri m or (referring to limbs) membra f)[1] The plural is membra (feminine) for the limbs of the body taken together and membri in the other senses;[2][3][4] Old Italian also had a feminine plural membre.[2][3][4] An old popular form was Old Italian vembro.[5][6]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin membrum (“limb, part of the body”).[7][8][3] DELI, GDLI and Zingarelli call it a learned word;[7][9][10] Nocentini lists it as a Latin word of Indo-European origin.[7][9][10] The Latin word lives on in the west of the Romance area, in French membre, Occitan membre, Catalan membre, Spanish miembro, Portuguese membro, Sardinian membru and Friulian nembri, but not in Romanian.[10][11][12] It was also borrowed into Irish.[5]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *memsro- and Proto-Indo-European *mēms-ro- (“body part, meaty part”).[13] De Vaan compares Old Irish mír (“portion”), Ancient Greek μηρός (mērós, “thigh”) and μῆρα (mêra, “body parts”), Sanskrit मांस (māṃsá, “meat”), Old Church Slavonic мѧсо (męso, “meat”) and Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌼𐌶 (mimz, “meat”).[13][10] Most of these mean “flesh”, so the Latin word first meant a fleshy part of the body.[7][10][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Pier della Vigna, who died in 1249, in the sense “limb”.[7][3] The meaning “penis” follows before 1292 in Bono Giamboni, and in the 13th century Guidotto da Bologna uses membro in rhetoric for a complete part of a sentence.[7]

Semantic evolution

From the parts of the body the word passed to the parts of any whole, recorded in the 14th century in the Italian translation of Josephus,[7] and later to the parts of a building and of a machine.[5][8] In the sense of a section of a sentence it translates the Greek rhetorical term Ancient Greek κῶλον (kôlon).[5]

The sense “person who belongs to a society” is recorded before 1419 in Giovanni Dominici.[7] It was not at once accepted: when Antonio Cesari published his prize dissertation for the Italian Academy of Livorno in 1810, he would not call himself its membro but its socio.[7] Today the sense is common in phrases such as membro del parlamento and stato membro.[1][8] In mathematics the word names each side of an equation.[8][14]

Timeline

  • Before 1249 – Pier della Vigna uses membro for a limb.[7]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for the penis.[7]
  • 13th century – Guidotto da Bologna uses it for a part of a sentence.[7]
  • Before 1419 – Giovanni Dominici uses it for a member of a society.[7]
  • 1810 – Antonio Cesari prefers socio to membro of an academy.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (anatomy) Each of the parts of the body of a human being or an animal, especially a limb; in the plural membra, the body as a whole: Dopo la corsa aveva le membra indolenzite.[8][2][14]
  2. (anatomy) The penis, also membro virile.[8][3]
  3. A member of a group, a family, an organisation or a body: È membro del consiglio comunale da dieci anni.[8][2][14]
  4. Each of the parts that make up a whole, a machine or a building.[8][14][3]
  5. (grammar) Each of the parts into which a sentence or period can be divided.[8][4]
  6. (mathematics) Each of the two expressions on either side of the sign of an equation or inequality.[8][14][3]

Word family

  • membratura
  • membruto
  • smembrare
  • smembramento

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  4. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  5. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2420
  6. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 652
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  9. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 10, 38
  10. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  12. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  13. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  14. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse