mettere

Forms

mettere (first-person singular present métto, first-person singular past historic mìsi, past participle mésso, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include metere, mittere, mìtere and méttare; the old past participle was miso beside messo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mittō (“to send; to let go”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin verb already moved from “send” to “put” in Late Latin: the Vulgate uses it in Luke 5:37 for putting new wine into old wineskins.^[3][6][7] Nocentini points to the compound immittō (“to put in”), the source of immettere, as the model for the sense “put inside”.^[4] The verb is pan-Romance: French mettre, Occitan metre, Catalan metre, Spanish meter, Portuguese meter and Sardinian mintere.^[4][8] DEI notes that it reached the southern dialects, such as Calabrian, from the literary language.^[9]

De Vaan and Wiktionary reconstruct Proto-Italic *meitō and Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to exchange, remove”); from “exchange” the sense developed to “give” and then “let go, send”.^[10][1] Nocentini counts the verb among the marginal Indo-European words, with an Avestan verb meaning “to send” as the most accepted match.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The form metere is in the 13th-century Anonimo veronese, and mettere in Giordano da Pisa in 1304, both in the sense “to place someone or something somewhere”.^[3] Guittone d'Arezzo, who died in 1294, already uses it for “to instil” fear or a feeling.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian developed most of the modern uses by the 14th century: “to lay” (Dante), “to drive in” (Romanzo di Tristano), “to spend time” (Bono Giamboni), “to add” (around 1340), “to wear” (Iacopone, as mittere), and the reflexive mettersi a “to begin” in Boccaccio.^[3] The intransitive sense “to lead into”, of a road or river, is in Giamboni, and Wiktionary also gives the verb for plants putting out shoots.^[3][1] “To suppose” (mettiamo che…) is in Annibale Caro, and “to install” (gas, a telephone) is first recorded in 1744.^[3]

The past participle missus was used as a noun in Late Latin for an envoy, which gave Italian messo “messenger” (before 1294).^[3][4] Many phrases with messa in… copy French models: messa a punto (1935) French mise au point, messa in scena mise en scène.^[3] DEI lists other locutions of the 20th century that copy French, such as mettere alla porta “to throw out” and mettere i punti sugli i “to dot the i's”.^[9] Mettere nel sacco “to trick” has a long German counterpart, in den Sack stecken.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – Metere appears in the Anonimo veronese.^[3]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the verb for “to instil”.^[3]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses it for “to lay”.^[3]
• 1304 – The form mettere is recorded in Giordano da Pisa.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses mettersi a for “to begin”.^[3]
• 1744 – Scipione Maffei uses it for “to install”.^[3]
• 1935 – Messa a punto, after French mise au point, is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To put, place, set somewhere: Metti il latte in frigorifero.^[5][11][6]
2. (transitive) To insert, drive in: mettere una vite nel legno.^[12][7]
3. (transitive) To put on, wear (clothes, shoes): Oggi metto il cappotto.^[7][1]
4. (transitive) To add, put in: mettere il sale nell’acqua.^[5][7]
5. (transitive) To install, have fitted: mettere il riscaldamento.^[7][3]
6. (transitive) To cause, arouse: mettere paura, to frighten.^[12][1]
7. (transitive) To suppose: mettiamo che non venga.^[3][12]
8. metterci: to take (time): Ci ho messo un'ora.^[3][1]
9. (intransitive) Of a road or river, to lead to, flow into.^[3][1]
10. (intransitive) Of plants, to sprout, put out shoots or leaves.^[1][9]
11. mettersi: to place oneself; to put on (clothes); mettersi a + infinitive, to begin.^[3][7]

Word family

• messa
• messo
• mettersi
• metterci
• mettibocca
• mettifoglio
• mettimale
• smettere
• dismettere
• estromettere
• intromettersi
• sottomettere

Related words

• ammettere
• commettere
• compromettere
• emettere
• frammettere
• immettere
• intermettere
• omettere
• permettere
• premettere
• promettere
• rimettere
• trasmettere
• Latin mittō
• French mettre

Usage notes

The past historic is misi, mise, misero, with Tuscan popular messi, messe, messero.^[11][7] Fixed phrases include mettere al mondo “to give birth to”, mettere a punto “to fine-tune” and mettere alla prova “to put to the test”.^[5][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 10
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2445
10. ^ 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 c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli