meriggio

Forms

meriggio m (plural meriggi)^[1] The older form is Old Italian merigge, masculine and feminine; Old Italian meriggia is also found.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin merīdiēs (“midday; south”), through the accusative merīdiem.^[2][4][1] Nocentini notes the change of declension class, and Devoto–Oli, Sabatini–Coletti and Zingarelli start from Vulgar Latin *merīdium; the older Old Italian merigge keeps the Latin declension.^{[4][5][6][7][2]} Sabatini–Coletti calls it the popular word beside the learned meridiano and meridionale.^[6]

The Latin word is medius (“middle”) and diēs (“day”), with the first ⟨d⟩ dissimilated to ⟨r⟩ before the second.^[2][8][1] It was made from a locative *medīdiē, from a phrase meaning “at the middle of the day”.^[4][9] Most Romance languages instead use a phrase “middle day”, as in mezzodì, French midi, Spanish mediodía and Portuguese meio-dia.^[10] The Latin noun survives in Transylvanian Romanian mereze and Friulian mirie, and in Sardinian mericeddu “evening”.^[11] The word is also Sicilian mirìu “noon”.^[12]

The sense “shade” comes from the verb meriggiare, “to rest in the shade at midday”, which continues Latin merīdiāre.^[2][4] DEI enters this sense under its own heading as a deverbal noun of the verb.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is merige in Ristoro d'Arezzo (1282), in the sense “shade”.^[2][13] Merigge “noon” is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, and the form meriggio in Domenico Cavalca, before 1342.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the hours around noon and also the south, as in the volgarizzamento of Palladius.^[14][3] Giovanni Villani reports that in 1339 the sun was eclipsed dopo il merigge, “after noon”.^[3] The sense “shade, shady resting place” is Tuscan: a 15th-century Aesop has Meriggiando uno vecchio al meriggio d'uno alboro (“an old man resting at midday in the shade of a tree”), and Arezzo says stare alle merigge “to sit in the shade”.^[2][12] Tuscan merio is the place where cattle rest in the shade.^[14]

In modern Italian meriggio is literary;^[4][5] pomeriggio “afternoon”, from 1848, is the everyday derivative.^[4][5] The word took the figurative sense of a culmination, the high point of a period or a civilisation, as in Croce's meriggio della poesia carducciana, and of the prime of life.^[13][5]

Timeline

• 1282 – Ristoro d'Arezzo writes merige “shade”.^[2][13]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses merigge “midday”.^[2]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses the form meriggio.^[2]
• 15th century – Meriggiare and meriggio “shade” appear in a translation of Aesop.^[2]
• 1848 – Pomeriggio “afternoon” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) noon, midday; the hottest hours around noon: Arrivarono in paese nel pieno meriggio.^{[13][5][6][15]}
2. (archaic) The south as a point of the compass.^[13][5][15]
3. (figurative, literary) The height or apogee of a period, a culture or a movement.^[13][5][6]
4. (figurative, literary) The prime of life, full adulthood.^[13][5][7]
5. (Tuscan) A cool, shady place to rest in during the hot hours.^[13][5][8]

Word family

• pomeriggio
• antimeriggio
• meriggiano

Related words

• meriggiare
• meridiano
• meridionale
• mezzodì
• Latin meridies
• French midi

Usage notes

Far meriggio means the same as meriggiare, to rest in the shade at midday.^[5][8] Meriggio was also an adjective, “of midday, southern”: Tommaseo quotes la parte meriggia del cielo from the Palladius translation.^[3][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2430
13. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 655
15. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana