montano

Forms

montano (feminine montana, masculine plural montani, feminine plural montane)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin montānus (“of the mountains”), formed on mōns (“mountain”) with the suffix -ānus.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Zingarelli calls it a learned word;^[6][1][7][8] Wiktionary has it inherited, and Meyer-Lübke lists it among the Romance outcomes of the Latin adjective, with French montain (“brambling”), Catalan montà and Spanish montano.^[6][1][7][8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *monti- and Proto-Indo-European *mon-ti- (“protrusion, height”), related to Welsh mynydd (“mountain”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini dates the word to the early 14th century, and Zingarelli to 1340;^{[2][6][10][3]} DELI's first record is before 1386, in Felice da Massa Marittima, in the sense “of or relating to the mountains”.^{[2][6][10][3]}

Semantic evolution

Old texts use it for plants of the hills, as in Crescenzi's Il montano (calamento) è migliore (“the mountain calamint is better”), and for places and roads.^[11] Manzoni's Di lunga erta montana (“of a long mountain slope”) shows the literary register, and Prati already called the word literary in 1951.^[11][12]

In modern Italian it is not said of people, who are montanari; it lives in technical language: comune montano, a municipality above 600 metres, comunità montana, bonifica montana, the piano montano of plant geography and the cera montana extracted from lignite.^[13][3] Plant and animal names such as pino montano, the mountain pine, also keep it.^[3][14]

Timeline

• Early 14th century – Montano is first recorded.^[2]
• 1340 – Zingarelli's date for the word.^[6]
• Before 1386 – Felice da Massa Marittima uses montano.^[10][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the mountains, relating to mountains: un villaggio montano.^{[3][4][15][1]}
2. (geography, ecology, administration) Of mountain areas, in technical terms: flora montana, ''comunità montana'' (an association of mountain municipalities), bacino montano (the upper basin of a river).^[3][4][13]

Word family

• cismontano
• montanaro
• montanino
• tramontano
• intermontano
• montanello
• montanesco
• oltremontano
• submontano

Related words

• monte
• montagna
• Latin montanus

Usage notes

Montano is not used of people: someone from the mountains is a montanaro.^[13] It is also a surname taken from a place name.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
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 c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 676
13. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse