natare

Forms

natare (first-person singular present nàto, first-person singular past historic natài, past participle natàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin natō (“to swim, float”), the learned doublet of nuotare.^[2] Wiktionary instead counts it as inherited.^[1] The Latin verb is the intensive or frequentative of nō (“to swim”), built on an old participle *natos.^[3][4][5][6] Popular forms survive in southern Italy, Sardinia and Friuli, as Sardinian nadare, and in Occitan nadar, Catalan nadar, Spanish nadar and Portuguese nadar, while the popular verb comes from Vulgar Latin *notāre.^[2][7][8]

De Vaan traces nō to Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- (“to swim, float”) and compares Old Irish snáid (“to swim”) and Ancient Greek νήχω (nḗkhō, “to swim”).^[6] Nocentini gives the root as *snā- and adds that nāre was replaced by natāre because it was too short.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Devoto–Oli, Sabatini–Coletti, Zingarelli and DEI date the word to the 13th century and GRADIT to before 1332, in the sense “to swim”.^{[4][9][5][2][3]} Jacopone da Todi has Va natando come pesce, “he goes swimming like a fish”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Old translations used it freely, of the animals that swim in the water and of the fish-eating peoples who swim in the sea like fish.^[10] By the 19th century Tommaseo marked it as obsolete, and modern dictionaries call it old, poetic or literary.^{[10][5][12][4]} Leopardi still wrote Natar giova tra' nembi, “it pleases us to swim among the clouds”.^[12]

Its present participle natante lives on as an adjective and noun, and learned derivatives followed: natatore in the 14th century, natatrice in Tasso, natatorio and natazione in the 19th century.^[12][2]

Timeline

• 13th century – Natare “to swim” is first recorded.^[4][9][2]
• 14th century – Natatore “swimmer” appears.^[2]
• 1618 – Natante is recorded in Buonarroti.^[2]
• 19th century – Natatorio and natazione appear in scientific use.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic, poetic) To swim.^[3][4][5][1]

Word family

• natante
• natatore
• natatorio
• natazione
• natatoio

Related words

• nuotare
• nuoto
• Latin natō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2551
3. ^ a b c 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 Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)