nevoso

Forms

nevoso (feminine nevosa, masculine plural nevosi, feminine plural nevose)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Old Italian nievoso and Old Italian nivoso.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nivōsus (“snowy, full of snow”), formed from the stem of nix (“snow”) with the adjective suffix -ōsus.^[3][4][5][1] In Latin the adjective was used above all of places full of snow, and also of seasons.^[6] Italian speakers can read it as neve with the suffix -oso.^[1]

The Latin word lives on across the Romance languages: Spanish nevoso, Portuguese nevoso and Sardinian niozu (Logudorese) are the same adjective.^[7][8][9]

The masculine noun naming the fourth month of the French Republican calendar has a separate source: it is a calque of French nivôse, itself formed from nivōsus.^{[5][10][11][1]} DELI records it first in the form nivoso in 1796, and in the present form in 1799.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Zingarelli date the adjective to before 1320.^[4][5] DELI's first record is the vernacular translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on agriculture, about 1350, in the sense “made of snow; covered with snow”.^[12] There it describes snowy ground: le nevose terre poca gramigna... producono (“snowy lands produce little couch grass”).^[13]

Semantic evolution

From the start the adjective described places where snow lies long and seasons or days when it falls.^[13][2] Boccaccio wrote of the regni nevosi (“snowy realms”) of the north, and Poliziano of the centaur hunting in the nevosa selva (“snowy forest”) of Pelion.^[2] Proverbs tie snow to a good harvest: anno nevoso, anno fruttuoso (“a snowy year is a fruitful year”).^[13][10]

Poetry used it for anything white as snow, as in Chiabrera's nevosi gelsomini (“snowy jasmine”), and more rarely for white hair, as in Alamanni's barba nevosa (“snowy beard”).^[10][14][13]

In modern use the word is common in weather and mountain language: manto nevoso is the layer of snow on the ground, and precipitazioni nevose are snowfalls.^[4][14][10] After 1796 Italian also used the noun nivoso, later nevoso, for Nivôse, the fourth month of the French Republican calendar, in force from 1793 to 1805, which ran from about 21 December to 19 January.^[12][10][11]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – First record of the adjective, as dated by GRADIT and Zingarelli.^[4][5]
• c. 1350 – The vernacular Crescenzi has nevoso “covered with snow”.^[12]
• 1796 – Nivoso, the name of the French Republican month, appears in an Italian collection of orders and notices.^[12]
• 1799 – The form nevoso for the month appears in Il Repubblicano piemontese.^[12]
• 1831 – Zingarelli's date for the noun, a calque on French nivôse.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of snow, made of snow: Il manto nevoso è alto un metro sopra i duemila metri.^[4][14][10]
2. Snow-covered, snowy: Dal rifugio si vedevano le vette nevose.^[4][14][5]
3. Having frequent or heavy snowfalls; of weather or sky, threatening snow: È stato un febbraio molto nevoso.^[4][14][11]
4. (literary) White as snow; also (archaic) hoary, white-haired.^[4][14][5]

Noun

1. (historical) Nivôse, the fourth month of the French Republican calendar, from about 21 December to 19 January.^{[4][14][10][1]}

Word family

• nevosità

Related words

• innevare
• nevaio
• neve
• nevicare
• neviera
• nevischio
• nivale
• niveo
• Latin nivōsus
• French nivôse

Usage notes

The ⟨s⟩ is pronounced either voiced /z/ or voiceless /s/.^[1][5][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 413
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2581
10. ^ a b c d e f g Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier