mentire

Forms

mentire (first-person singular present ménto or (traditional) mènto or mentìsco, first-person singular past historic mentìi, past participle mentìto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mentior (“to lie; to invent”), used in Late Latin in the active form mentīre.^[2][3][4][5] DELI and DEI call it a learned word, and DEI notes that spoken Italian and the dialects prefer a phrase with bugia (“lie”) instead.^[2][6] Nocentini, however, counts it among the inherited words found in all the Romance languages: French mentir, Occitan mentir, Catalan mentir, Spanish mentir, Portuguese mentir and Romanian minți.^[3][7][8]

The Latin verb is derived from mēns (“mind”).^[2][3][9] Devoto reconstructs the development of its meaning as “to imagine”, then “to feign”, and then “to lie”.^[2][9][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294, in the sense “to say what is false, the opposite of what one believes true”.^[2][4] Zingarelli dates the verb before 1257.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The verb was used as a noun in Old Italian for “a lie”, as in Iacopone, Francesco da Barberino and the Bible translations.^[11][12] The phrase mentire per la gola, to lie shamelessly, is recorded in Venetian in 1312, and Luigi Pulci has mentire per la strozza in the same sense.^[2][10] The past participle mentito “false” is in Petrarch (1375), and mentitore “liar” in Dante (1304–1308).^[2]

Benedetto Varchi in the 16th century distinguished telling a bugia, saying something false, from mentire, the Latin word, saying what one knows to be false.^[12] The transitive senses “to feign” and “to give the lie to” are now rare or old; the second passed to the derivative smentire, with smentita “denial” recorded in 1873.^[3][10][13]

Timeline

• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses mentire.^[2]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses mentitore “liar”.^[2]
• 1312 – Mentire per la gola is recorded in Venetian.^[2]
• 1375 – Petrarch uses mentito “false”.^[2]
• 14th century – Smentire “to deny, give the lie to” appears.^[3]
• 1873 – Smentita “denial” is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lie, say deliberately what is false: Non mentirmi, so che eri lì.^{[4][5][14][1]}
2. Mentire a sé stessi: to deceive oneself, believe what one knows is untrue.^[4][13][15]
3. Of things, to be deceptive or untrue: Il suo sorriso mentiva.^[4][5][14]
4. (uncommon) To fail, disappoint: to fall short of a promise or hope.^[4][5][15]
5. (transitive, uncommon) To feign or falsify: to feign tears.^{[4][5][10][1]}
6. (transitive, archaic) To deny, give the lie to.^[4][5][13]

Word family

• mentito
• mentitore
• smentire
• smentita

Related words

• mente
• menzogna
• bugia
• Latin mentior

Usage notes

The present has mènto (or ménto) and, less commonly or in literary use, mentisco.^[5][10][1] Fixed phrases are mentire per la gola (to lie through one's teeth) and mentire sapendo di mentire (to lie knowingly).^[13][10] The proverb buon sangue non mente says that inherited traits will show.^[4][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 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 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
6. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2425
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 10, 1
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli