Etymologically
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nato

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Pronunciation

Forms

nato (feminine nata, masculine plural nati, feminine plural nate)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nātus (“born; son”), the past participle of nāscor (“to be born”).[2][3][4][1] The Latin word had an older form gnātus, which shows its link with gignō (“to beget”), so that it first meant “begotten”.[2][5][1] It goes back to Proto-Italic *gnātos and Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁tós (“begotten, produced”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to beget, give birth”).[1][6] Devoto notes that the same formation is found in Indo-Iranian and Germanic.[5]

The word is pan-Romance, and in several languages it turned into a noun: Romanian nat (“child”), Old Occitan nada (“girl”), Old French nee and Sardinian nadu.[3][7][4] Spanish nada and Portuguese nada “nothing” come from the phrase Latin rem natam (“a thing born, anything in the world”), used in negative sentences.[3][7] DEI traces the noun use back to Columella, who already used the plural noun for the young of lambs and pigs.[8] The learned derivatives natale, nativo and natio come from the same Latin family.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record of the adjective, “come into the world, born”, is in Dino Compagni's chronicle of 1310–1312;[2][8] DEI dates the word to the 13th century.[2][8] Compagni writes of the pope Benedict, “born at Treviso” (nato di Trevigi).[9]

Semantic evolution

Dante used the noun nato for “son” before 1321, a sense that is now literary: in the Paradiso he speaks of “Israel with his father and with his sons” (Israel con lo padre e co' suoi nati).[2][10][11] Placed after a noun, the adjective came to mark a quality someone has had from birth, either a defect (cieco nato, blind from birth) or a natural gift (un oratore nato).[10][12][13]

Before a woman's maiden name, nata is recorded from Bernardo Davanzati's Tacitus of 1600;[2][11] DELI reports that it was held to be a calque of French née, though Viani defended it as native.[2][11] The plural noun for people born in a given year or period, i nati del 1990, is dated by DELI to 1958.[2][10] Set phrases include nato ieri “naive”, nato morto “stillborn”, also of a plan doomed from the start, and nato e sputato “the spitting image of”.[14][13][15]

Timeline

  • 1310–1312 – Dino Compagni uses nato “born”.[2]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses nato as a noun, “son”.[2]
  • 1600 – Bernardo Davanzati uses nata before a maiden name.[2]
  • 1905 – Panzini compares nata with French née.[2]
  • 1958 – Nato is recorded for a person born in a given year.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. born, come into the world: Il puledro è nato stanotte.[10][12][14]
  2. After a noun, having a quality or defect from birth, or a natural gift for something: È un cuoco nato.[10][12][16]
  3. Before a surname, giving a married woman's maiden name: Giulia Neri nata Fabbri.[10][14][13]

Noun

  1. (mostly plural) A person born in a given year or period: i nati dopo il Duemila.[10][12][14]
  2. (literary) A son, a child; also the young of an animal.[10][12][1]

Word family

  • natale
  • natalità
  • natalizio
  • natio
  • nativo
  • natività
  • neonato
  • malnato
  • innato
  • antenato

Usage notes

NATO (feminine), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a different word, the English acronym.[1][10][12] Old Italian also had a noun nato “swimming”, from natare, in the phrase a nato.[9]

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 i j k l m n 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
  5. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2552
  9. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  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 c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  14. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  16. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse