minaccia

Forms

minaccia f (plural minacce)^[1] Old Italian manace (plural), manaza; dialect manazza, menaza, minazza.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin minācia (“threat”), a singular formed late; classical Latin used only the plural minaciae, found in Plautus.^[4][2][3][1] The noun was formed from the adjective mināx (“threatening”), properly “about to fall, overhanging”, from minor (“to threaten; to jut out, hang over”), the verb that also gave Italian menare.^[4][2][5] The same word is French menace, Occitan menasa, Catalan menassa, Spanish amenaza, Portuguese ameaça and Logudorese Sardinian minatta.^[4][6][7]

The verb itself comes from minae (“threats; parts of a wall that jut out”).^[5][8] De Vaan takes the first sense to be “a protruding part” and connects it with ēmineō (“to stand out”), mentum (“chin”) and mōns (“mountain”), from a root Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to stick out”);^[8][5] Devoto too links it with “mōns” and with immineō (“to hang over”).^[8][5] DELI calls the origin of the verb obscure.^[2]

Because Latin used the word mostly in the plural, Old Italian often did too, and the grammarian Buonmattei even denied that good writers used the singular.^[2] The verb minacciare is formed from the noun, but it may be very old: DELI points to Vulgar Latin *minaciāre, recorded as “manatiare” in the Reichenau Glosses of about 750.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the plural manace in the 13th-century poem Della caducità della vita umana, in the sense of an act or speech meant to frighten; the figurative sense “danger of a coming evil” is in Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294.^[2][9] The form minacce is in Dino Compagni's chronicle (1310–1312).^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Inferno Dante writes “ma vergogna mi fer le sue minacce” (“but his threats put shame in me”), and Boccaccio that threats are nothing but the weapons of the one who is threatened.^[10] Beside the plural minacce, literary Italian kept an old plural le minaccia.^[3]

In modern Italian the word has a legal sense, the offence of making someone fear an unjust harm, which the GDLI describes at length.^[3][9][11] The figurative senses widened from a danger hanging over someone to any sign of something bad approaching, as of a storm or an illness.^[9][12] Ethology took it for the display an animal makes to drive off rivals or predators.^[9][12][11]

Timeline

• 13th century – The plural manace is recorded in Della caducità della vita umana.^[2][9]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses it for a danger to come.^[2]
• Before 1294 – The verb minacciare is recorded in Brunetto Latini.^[2]
• 1310–1312 – Dino Compagni writes minacce.^[2]
• 1516 – Minaccioso “threatening” appears in Ariosto's Orlando furioso.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A threat: words or acts meant to frighten someone with the prospect of harm or punishment, often to force them to do something: Ha ceduto solo dopo le minacce del vicino.^[9][12][13]
2. (law) The offence of making someone fear an unjust harm.^[9][13][11]
3. (figurative) A danger hanging over someone or something; a sign that something bad is approaching: Sulla fabbrica pesa la minaccia della chiusura.^[9][12][14]
4. (medicine) An early sign of an illness or attack.^[9][12]
5. (ethology) The behaviour an animal shows to drive away rivals of its own species or predators.^[9][12][11]

Word family

• minacciare
• minaccioso
• minaccevole

Related words

• menare
• eminente
• imminente
• monte
• Latin minae

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli