niuno

Forms

niuno (singular only, feminine niuna)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian neun, Old Italian neuno, Old Italian neguno and Old Italian niguno.^[2][3][4] The variants Old Italian gniuno and Old Italian ignuno are recorded too.^[3][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ne ūnum (“not one”), from Latin nē (“not”) and ūnus (“one”).^[2][7][8][1] Nocentini describes it as an Old Tuscan word.^[7] The northern dialects continue a variant built on another negative: the old Venetian and Milanese forms are negun and nigün, which agree with Occitan negun, Catalan ningun and Spanish ninguno.^[7]

Meyer-Lübke lists the word among the compounds of nec (“and not”), beside Old French neun, niun and Portuguese nenhum.^[9] The GDLI also starts from nec ūnus and thinks the word probably came through the Old French form.^[3] The standard nessuno has a separate source, which Körting explains with ipse between the negative and the numeral.^[10]

The Latin negative goes back to Proto-Italic *nē and Proto-Indo-European *nē, which de Vaan takes as a stressed variant of the short negative particle.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form neun in the Breve di Montieri of 1219, with the sense “no, not any”.^[2][8][5] The form niuno appears at the end of the 13th century in the Novellino.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word was a common negative pronoun and adjective.^[3][12] Brunetto Latini wrote neuno uomo, and Dante in the Convivio says of hasty reasoners that they non si muovono da neuno principio, “do not start from any principle”.^[3][4] Boccaccio's Decameron has niuno mi vi conosce, “nobody knows me there”.^[12] It was used almost only in the singular.^[3][12]

Nessuno later took its place, and niuno became literary and archaic.^[8][13][14] Poets kept it: Pascoli wrote niuno vide che lacero / fuggivo gli occhi prossimi, and Boito Niun mi tema!.^[5][4] The shortened niun survives longest in set phrases.^[4]

Timeline

• 1219 – neun is recorded in the Breve di Montieri.^[2][8]
• Late 13th century – the form niuno appears in the Novellino.^[2]
• 1861 – Tommaseo–Bellini treats it as a synonym of nessuno, used mostly in the singular.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) no, not any; nessuno.^{[8][13][14][4][1]}

Pronoun

1. (literary) nobody, no one.^{[8][13][14][4][1]}

Related words

• nessuno
• nimo
• uno

Usage notes

Before a noun the word is often shortened to niun, especially in phrases such as in niun modo, a niun patto and di niun conto (in no way, on no account, of no account).^[4][14][5] It has no plural in normal use.^[3][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ 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)
5. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b c 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 d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse