misturare

Forms

misturare (first-person singular present mistùro, first-person singular past historic misturài, past participle misturàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old form is mesturare.^[2]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Late Latin mixtūrāre, recorded in Palladius, a denominal verb from Latin mixtūra (“mixture”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEI notes Medieval Latin mixturare (“to mix”) at Ravenna in the 9th century.^[6]

The same verb is Spanish mesturar and Portuguese misturar.^[7] The Latin noun is formed on mixtus, the past participle of misceō (“to mix”), with the suffix -ūra.^[8][1] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *mik-sk-e/o- and to Proto-Indo-European *miḱ-sk-e/o- (“to mix”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Devoto–Oli date the verb to the 14th century, Zingarelli to 1563, and DEI to 1821.^[3][4][5][6] The sense is “to mix”, especially with substances of another kind.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Mattioli's translation of Dioscorides speaks of springs and rivers whose water is mesturato with a petrifying juice, and Soderini uses the verb of wine.^[2] D'Alberti registered misturato in 1803 as a word of current use meaning “altered by a mixture”.^[10]

The verb is now disused in the standard language but still common in some northern regions, above all of wine: vino misturato is adulterated wine.^[11][5][12]

Timeline

• 14th century – GRADIT's and Devoto–Oli's date for misturare.^[3][4]
• 1563 – Zingarelli's date for the verb.^[5]
• 1803 – D'Alberti records misturato “adulterated”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, dated) To mix something with substances of another kind, making a mistura: Il locandiere misturava la birra con l'acqua.^{[3][4][11][1]}
2. (transitive) To adulterate wine or another drink or food.^{[3][5][13][1]}

Word family

• misturatrice

Related words

• mistura
• misto
• Latin mixtūra

Usage notes

Treccani marks the word as old but common in some northern regions; its past participle misturato is used as an adjective, “adulterated”, of wine.^[11][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e 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 e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2478
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana