noverare

Forms

noverare (first-person singular present nòvero, first-person singular past historic noverài, past participle noveràto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old form is Old Italian nuoverare.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *nuberāre, a form of Latin numerō (“to count”) in which the second of the two nasals was dissimilated to /b/.^[3][4][1] The Latin verb is a derivative of numerus (“number”).^[5][4][6]

The same verb is French nombrer, Occitan nombrar, Catalan nombrar and Romanian număra.^[5][7] In northern Italy it gave Venetian ombrar (Verona, Trento), and in Vegliote embruar.^[7]

For Latin numerus de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *nomeso- and connects it with Proto-Indo-European *nem-e/os- (“apportioning”), the root of Ancient Greek νέμω (némō, “to dispense, distribute”).^[6]

The verb is the popular outcome of the Latin verb; numerare is a later literary borrowing of the same word.^[8][4] In the same way Latin numerus gave the popular novero beside the learned numero.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the sermons of Giordano da Pisa, 1303–1306, with the sense “to count, enumerate”.^[9] Giordano asks how many tastes God has made for the mouth alone: chi gli potrebbe noverare? (“who could count them?”).^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the verb was the ordinary word for counting things one by one: Giovanni Villani describes men counting the beans of a vote, and Boccaccio old women sent to the kitchen a noverare le pentole e le scodelle (“to count the pots and bowls”).^[2] Ariosto has a lover counting the steps between his lady and himself.^[2]

From counting the verb came to mean putting someone or something among a number: Redi wrote that in New Spain this pepper is counted among the ingredients of chocolate.^[10][11] Poets used it for going over things in memory, as Leopardi's il noverar l'etate del mio dolore (“counting over the age of my sorrow”).^[12][13]

Today noverare is literary, and annoverare and contare have taken its place in ordinary speech.^[8][12][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – Nocentini's date for the first record of the verb.^[5]
• 1303–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses noverare “to count”.^[9]
• 1306 – GRADIT's date for the first record.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To count, enumerate one by one: Noverava i giorni che mancavano alla partenza.^{[12][14][15][16]}
2. (literary) To include, number among a group: Molti lo noverano tra i maggiori pittori del secolo.^{[14][16][4][11]}
3. (poetic) To recall, go over in memory one by one.^{[12][15][16][11]}

Word family

• annoverare
• innoverabile
• noverazione

Related words

• novero
• numerare
• numero
• Latin numerō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 610
3. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 703
9. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana