meritare

Forms

meritare (first-person singular present mèrito, first-person singular past historic meritài, past participle meritàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The literary form is mertare, with the vowel before the stress lost.^[2][3] Old Italian also wrote meretare.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin meritō (“to earn; to serve for pay”), a learned word according to DEI and the GDLI.^{[5][6][4][7][8]} The Latin verb is an intensive formed on meritus, the past participle of mereō (“to earn; to deserve”).^[7][2][3][9] Meritāre is recorded from Cato and Cicero with the sense “to earn, draw pay”.^[10] The same verb gave French mériter, recorded from the 14th century.^[6]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *mer-ē- (“to earn”) and, with a question mark, a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- (“to receive one's share”); the cognates are Ancient Greek μείρομαι (meíromai, “to receive one's share”) and μέρος (méros, “part, share”).^[10][11] Devoto adds Hittite mark- (“to divide”) and suggests the root first meant drawing one's share to oneself and took on a moral sense in Latin.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in the 13th century, as mertare in Guittone d'Arezzo (before 1294) and as meritare in the Sicilian poet Iacopo Mostacci, meaning “to be worthy to have or receive”.^[12][8] Guittone advises never to take anything senza mertarla pria, “without first deserving it”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries the verb also meant “to reward”, a sense now archaic: Dante speaks of lo re, che merta i suoi servi, “the king who rewards his servants”.^[8][6][13] The causative “to win for someone, to bring” is recorded before 1342 in Domenico Cavalca, and the intransitive “to deserve well of, to earn merit”, especially in a moral sense, in Dante (1300–1313).^[12] In theology the verb named the earning of spiritual merit: Fra Giordano writes that we cannot merit anything by ourselves.^[4][8]

The colloquial sense “to be worth (a price)” is recorded before 1750 in Muratori.^[12] The impersonal non merita, “it is not worth it”, and the intensive meritarsi are current today.^[8][14][13] The Tuscan proverb chi non mi vuol non mi merita, “whoever does not want me does not deserve me”, is a proud reply to a rebuff.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 13th century – Iacopo Mostacci uses meritare.^[12]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the form mertare.^[12][8]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the verb for earning merit.^[12]
• 14th century – French mériter is recorded.^[6]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it for “to bring, win for someone”.^[12]
• Before 1750 – Muratori uses it for “to be worth”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deserve: to be worthy of a reward, or of a punishment: Dopo tanto lavoro meritavi una promozione.^[8][2][3]
2. To deserve to do or that something happen, with di and an infinitive or che and the subjunctive: La squadra ha meritato di vincere la partita.^[8][2]
3. (impersonal) To be worth it, to be worth the trouble: Non merita arrabbiarsi per così poco.^[8][2][13]
4. (colloquial) To be worth a price: Quella bicicletta non merita la cifra che chiedono.^[8][2][3]
5. To win something for someone, to bring: La sua scoperta gli ha meritato un premio.^[8][2][14]
6. (literary) Meritare di: to deserve well of, to render service to: ben meritare della patria.^[2][14][16]
7. (archaic) To reward.^[8][3][13]

Word family

• meritevole
• demeritare
• rimeritare
• smeritare

Related words

• merito
• meritorio
• Latin mereō
• French mériter

Usage notes

The pronominal form meritarsi stresses that the thing is deserved, good or bad, and meritarsela is said of a deserved misfortune.^[3][14][13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
6. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2431
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli