nipote

Forms

nipote m or f by sense (plural nipoti, diminutive nipotìno m or nipotìna f, pejorative nipotàccio m or nipotàccia f)^[1] The literary and popular form is nepote.^[2][3][4] Old Italian forms include nevodo, nevode, nievodi and niputi, and Old Venetian had nievo.^[5][6][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nepōs (“grandson; nephew; descendant”), from the accusative nepōtem.^[7][2][8][1] The same word is French neveu, Occitan nebot, Catalan nebot, Sardinian nebode, Romanian nepot and Sicilian niputi.^[2][1][6]

Latin nepōs meant both “grandson” and, later, “nephew”, and Italian has kept both senses, as Sardinian and Romanian have;^[2] French and Spanish created new words for one of them.^[2] The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *nepōts and Proto-Indo-European *h₂népōts, a male descendant other than a son.^[9][1] Cognates include Sanskrit नपात् (nápāt, “descendant, grandson”), Old Lithuanian nepuotis, Old High German nevo (whence German Neffe) and Old English nefa;^[2][9] English nephew is a loan from French.^[2][9] Nocentini interprets the Indo-European word as a legal term, “one without power”, from a negative prefix and the root of potere.^[2] The Latin feminine neptis lived on in Vulgar Latin forms that gave French nièce and Spanish nieta.^[2]

The pretonic ⟨e⟩ of the Latin word became ⟨i⟩, a tendency that Migliorini found already in the Edict of Rothari.^[7] Devoto compares divoto beside Latin dēvōtus.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a rent register of the abbey of Coltibuono from the end of the 12th century, where it cannot be told whether the word means “grandson” or “nephew”.^[7][5][8] The Novellino (late 13th century) has nepote for a brother's or sister's son.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the word for a grandson, as in “he was grandson of the good Gualdrada” (nepote fu della buona Gualdrada), and in the plural for descendants.^[7][11] Brunetto Latini calls the Gracchi the nepoti of Scipio Africanus.^[11] The form nepote long remained literary;^[12] Tommaseo noted that nipote was the more common form in Florentine speech.^[12]

Derivatives include bisnipote (early 14th century, Boccaccio), nipotino (Ariosto), pronipote (15th century) and nepotismo (17th century), formed on nepote for the favour that popes showed their nephews and other relatives.^[2][13][14] By extension the word is used for the spouse of a nephew or niece and for a cousin's child, and figuratively for a follower or heir of a thinker;^[8][3][4] i nipoti di Adamo are all mankind.^[8][3][4]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Nipote appears in a document of the abbey of Coltibuono.^[5][7]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino has nepote “nephew”.^[7]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for a grandson and for descendants.^[7]
• Early 14th century – Bisnipote is recorded.^[2]
• 15th century – Pronipote is recorded.^[2]
• 17th century – Nepotismo appears in Sforza Pallavicino.^[14][2]
• 1846 – Nepotista is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. nephew or niece, the child of one's brother or sister: Mia sorella ha due figli, quindi ho due nipoti.^[8][3][15]
2. grandchild, the child of one's son or daughter: La nonna passa le domeniche con i nipoti.^[8][3][15]
3. (by extension) The husband or wife of one's nephew or niece.^[8][3]
4. (by extension) The child of one's cousin.^[8][3]
5. (literary, in the plural) Descendants, posterity.^[8][3][15]
6. (figurative) A follower or epigone.^[8][3]

Word family

• nipotino
• bisnipote
• nepotismo
• nepotista
• nepotistico

Related words

• pronipote
• Latin nepōs
• French neveu

Usage notes

One word covers both the brother's or sister's child and the grandchild, as in Latin; only the context tells them apart.^[2][8] The word is masculine or feminine by sense: il nipote, la nipote.^[1][8]

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 o Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
14. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2587
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse