mescolare

Forms

mescolare (first-person singular present méscolo or mèscolo, first-person singular past historic mescolài, past participle mescolàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms also include Old Italian miscolare and Old Italian mesculare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin misculāre (“to mix”), recorded from the 9th century.^[3][1][4] The Latin verb is formed on misceō (“to mix”), through an adjective Vulgar Latin *misculus (“mixed”), whose diminutive miscellus is found in classical Latin.^[3][5][6] Nocentini instead calls the verb a learned borrowing from Medieval Latin.^[5] It is the doublet of mischiare.^[1][7]

The same verb gave French mêler, Old Occitan mesclar and Catalan mesclar, from which Spanish mezclar and Portuguese mesclar were taken.^[8][2] Latin misceō goes back to Proto-Indo-European *miḱ-sk-e/o-, and is related to Ancient Greek μείγνυμι (meígnumi, “to mix”), Old Irish mescaid (“mixes”) and Old English miscian (“to mix”).^[9]

The pronominal use “to meddle in” is a calque of French se mêler de.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini dates the verb to 1275.^[5] DELI's first records are Zucchero Bencivenni (1310), with the sense “to put different substances together into one mass”, and Giordano da Pisa (1309), who uses mescularsi for “to get involved with”: l'omo non si dovrebbe mesculare con esse, “one should not mix with them”, of riches.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the verb also meant “to confuse different things or people”, and mescolarsi “to meddle”.^[3] In Simintendi's Ovid, Thisbe mescoloe lo pianto al sangue, “mingled her tears with the blood”.^[2] The noun mescolanza first named a mix of salad leaves (1344) before it meant any mixture.^[3]

Modern uses include stirring a dish, drinking different kinds of alcohol one after another, shuffling cards and, figuratively, mescolare le carte, “to confuse an issue on purpose”.^[6][10][11] In electronics it means to combine two or more signals.^[6][10]

Timeline

• 1275 – The verb is first recorded.^[5]
• 1309 – Giordano da Pisa uses mescularsi.^[3]
• 1310 – Zucchero Bencivenni uses mescolare for mixing substances.^[3]
• 1344 – Mescolanza names a mixed salad.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses mescolarsi.^[3]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci uses mescolarsi for substances that blend.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To mix, blend: to put two or more substances together into one more or less even mass: mescolare farina e zucchero.^[6][4][12]
2. To stir a mixture or a dish: mescolare il sugo.^[6][12][13]
3. To drink different alcoholic drinks one after another.^[6][13]
4. (figurative) To put together or confuse different things arbitrarily: mescolare il sacro e il profano.^[6][4]
5. To jumble, put out of order;^[6][4][13] mescolare le carte, to shuffle cards, or to muddle an issue on purpose.^[6][4][13]
6. (electronics) To combine two or more voltages or signals.^[6][13]
7. (pronominal) mescolarsi: to blend; to mingle with others, mescolarsi ai passanti; to meddle.^[4][12][14]

Word family

• frammescolare
• mescolanza
• mescolata
• tramescolare
• mescolatore
• mescolatura
• mescola
• rimescolare
• rimescolamento
• rimescolio
• mescolamento

Related words

• mescere
• mestare
• mischiare
• mistura
• miscela
• Latin misceō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ 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
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli