morire

Forms

morire (first-person singular present muòio, first-person singular past historic morìi, past participle mòrto, first-person singular future morirò or (literary) morrò, auxiliary èssere or (transitive) avére)^[1] The present is irregular: muoio, muori, muore, popular and regional moio and moro.^[2][3] The future is morirò or literary morrò.^[2][1] Old texts have murire and morere.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *morīre, for classical Latin morī (“to die”).^{[4][6][7][2][8]} Early Latin already had the infinitive ⟨morīrī⟩ in Plautus and Ennius,^[9][10] and the spoken language turned the deponent into an active verb.^[4][6]

The same verb is French mourir, Occitan morir, Catalan morir, Spanish morir and Romanian muri; Sardinian mòrrere and Portuguese morrer come from a variant ⟨*morĕre⟩.^[6][11] That variant may also lie behind Ticinese ⟨mor⟩.^[12][11]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic ⟨*morje-⟩ and Proto-Indo-European *mr̥-yé- (“to die”), from the root *mer-, which Nocentini glosses as “to die a natural death”.^[9][6] Related words are Lithuanian mirti, Old Church Slavonic мрѣти (mrěti) and Ancient Greek ἄμβροτος (ámbrotos, “immortal”).^[6][9] In the Germanic languages the root came to mean “murder”, as in German Mord.^[13][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is murire in the Breve di Montieri of 1219, followed by morire in an inventory of Orlando's goods of 1221, both in the sense “to cease living”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian poetry soon made dying a figure of suffering: morir is better than endless pain for Re Enzo, and DELI dates the sense “to suffer intensely” to the 14th-century Pianto della Madonna.^[5][4] The figurative senses “to cease to exist” (Antonio Cocchi, before 1758) and “to fade away” (Manzoni, 1840–1842) followed.^[4]

Modern Italian uses it hyperbolically: morire di fame, morire dal ridere, and da morire “terribly”.^[7][8][14] A road, river or train line muore where it ends.^[8][2] The transitive sense “to kill” is literary or Tuscan, as in Foscolo's hai morta l'innocente figlia (“you have killed the innocent daughter”).^[8][1] The proverb chi non muore si rivede greets someone not seen for a long time.^[7][14]

Timeline

• 1219 – Murire appears in the Breve di Montieri.^[4]
• 1221 – Morire appears in an inventory of Orlando's goods.^[4]
• 13th century – Morente “dying” is recorded.^[4][6]
• 14th century – The Pianto della Madonna uses it for “to suffer intensely”.^[4]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses moribundo.^[4]
• 1840–1842 – Manzoni uses it for “to fade away”.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To die, to cease living: È morto nel sonno a novant'anni.^[7][2][8]
2. Of plants and animals, to die: Il basilico è morto per il gelo.^[7][8]
3. (figurative) To come to an end, to fade; of a road or river, to end: La strada muore ai piedi della collina.^[2][8]
4. (hyperbolic) To suffer from or feel intensely: morire di sete, morire dalla voglia, da morire “terribly”: Fa un freddo da morire.^[7][2][8]
5. (literary or Tuscan, transitive) To kill.^[8][1]

Noun

1. The act of dying, death; the end: al morire della sera “as evening ends”.^[8][1]

Word family

• morente
• morto
• premorire

Related words

• morte
• mortale
• moribondo
• morituro
• moria
• Latin morior

Usage notes

The verb takes essere as its auxiliary, and avere in the transitive sense.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2511
13. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 288
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana