Etymologically
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nave

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Pronunciation

Forms

nave f (plural navi)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nāvis (“ship”), through the accusative form.[2][3][4][1] The Latin word lives on in most Romance languages: French nef, Occitan nau, Catalan nau, Spanish nave, Portuguese nave, Sardinian nae and Romanian naie.[3][5] DEI doubts that the word is truly pan-Romance and notes that Old French nave was brought into French in the 13th century by two writers steeped in Italian, Philip of Novara and Marco Polo.[6][7]

The Latin noun belongs to the oldest layer of the Indo-European vocabulary.[3][8] It goes back to Proto-Italic *naus and Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us, and its cognates include Ancient Greek ναῦς (naûs), Sanskrit नौ (naú), Armenian նավ (nav), Old Irish nau and Old Norse nór.[9][3][1] De Vaan explains the word as “the floating one”, from the root for swimming, and notes that Latin brought the long vowel of the oblique cases into the nominative and then remade the word as an ⟨i⟩-stem.[9][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giacomo da Lentini, the leading poet of the Sicilian school (before 1250), for a large vessel carrying people and goods on the water.[2][4] DEI also records the 14th-century sense “cargo of a ship”.[6]

Semantic evolution

In early Italian nave could also mean any boat: Dante writes of “nave che per torrente giù discende” (a boat going down a torrent).[4][10] The poets made the ship a figure for a life or a community, as in Petrarch's “passa la nave mia colma d'oblio” (my ship passes, laden with forgetfulness) and Dante's “nave senza nocchiere in gran tempesta” (a ship without a pilot in a great storm), said of Italy.[4][11] From the 14th to the 18th century the word also named a particular kind of three-masted square-rigged sailing ship.[4][11]

The architectural sense “nave of a church” is used by Matteo Villani (before 1363), and the derivative navata by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (before 1502), perhaps because the space recalls the hull of a ship.[7][2][12] Modern compounds are partly calques of English: nave spaziale follows space ship and nave traghetto follows ferry-boat.[2] French used nave as a borrowing from about 1216 until the 16th century, and German Nave is recorded from 1461.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1216 – French nave is first recorded as a borrowing.[7]
  • Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses nave.[2]
  • Before 1304 – Navetta “little ship” appears in a translation of Plutarch.[2]
  • 1353 – Boccaccio uses navale.[2]
  • Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses nave for the nave of a church.[7]
  • 1461 – German Nave is first recorded.[7]
  • Before 1502 – Navata is recorded in Francesco di Giorgio Martini.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ship, a large vessel with its own means of propulsion, carrying passengers or goods or used in war: nave da crociera, nave cisterna, nave da guerra.[4][13][11][14]
  2. (literary) A boat of any size.[4][11][10]
  3. (figurative, literary) The course of a person's life or of a community.[4][11][10]
  4. (historical) A three-masted sailing ship with square sails and a bowsprit.[4][11]
  5. (uncommon) The nave of a church, a navata.[4][11][14]
  6. A large oblong vat, especially the one in which milk is left to stand before skimming (nave da latte).[4][11]
  7. (astronomy) Nave, the constellation Argo.[11][14]

Word family

  • navale
  • navata
  • navetta
  • navicella
  • navicello
  • naviglio
  • navigare
  • astronave
  • motonave
  • naufragio
  • nauta
  • Latin nāvis
  • French nef

Usage notes

Common compounds include nave scuola (training ship), nave ammiraglia (flagship), nave spaziale (spaceship) and nave traghetto (ferry); la nave del deserto is the camel.[10][13][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2555
  7. ^ a b c d e f Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  8. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 256
  13. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli