Etymologically
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nudo

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Pronunciation

Forms

nudo (feminine nuda, masculine plural nudi, feminine plural nude)[1] The Tuscan and literary variant is ignudo, with a palatal /ɲ/ and a prosthetic ⟨i⟩, beside popular gnudo.[2][3][4] GDLI records the old forms niudo and nùo.[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nūdus (“naked; bare”).[6][2][7][1] The same word is French nu, Occitan nut, Catalan nu, Spanish nudo and Portuguese nu, as well as Romansh nüd, Friulian nut and Dalmatian noid.[2][8] GDLI calls it a pan-Romance word.[5]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *nogʷedos and to an Indo-European adjective Proto-Indo-European *nogʷ- (“naked”), which took different suffixes in the different branches.[9][2][1] Its relatives include Sanskrit नग्न (nagná), Lithuanian núogas, Old High German nakot and Old English nacod, the source of English naked, and, with some difficulty, Ancient Greek γυμνός (gumnós).[2][9][1] De Vaan follows Schrijver in deriving the Latin adjective from the Proto-Italic form through a series of regular sound changes.[9] Devoto saw the Latin and the Germanic adjectives as the same root with different extensions, one with ⟨-edo-⟩ and one with ⟨-eto-⟩ or ⟨-oto-⟩.[10]

The Tuscan ignudo shows a palatalised initial ⟨n⟩, a sporadic change also found in Tuscan gnucca for nuca, and an ⟨i⟩ added before the cluster.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates the first record to Brunetto Latini, before 1294, in the sense “lacking, bare”; the sense “naked, without clothes” follows in Iacopone da Todi's Laudi (before 1306).[6][7] Nocentini puts the word at the beginning of the 13th century.[2]

Semantic evolution

From the start nudo meant both naked and bare in a wider sense.[6][5][11] Dante compares the sinners to wrestlers in the arena: Qual sogliono i campion far nudi e unti (“as champions used to do, naked and oiled”).[5] The word also described a drawn sword, a horse ridden without a saddle, and figuratively anything plain and unadorned, as in la nuda verità “the plain truth”.[11][7][12] Petrarch used it for “defenceless, destitute” in the line Povera e nuda vai, filosofia (“Poor and naked you go, philosophy”), and for the soul freed from the body.[7][13]

As a noun nudo has meant the naked human body as a subject of art since Leon Battista Alberti (before 1472);[6][11] DEI records it in the 16th century also as the name of a coin of Duke Cesare d'Este of Modena that showed a naked putto.[14] Law has nuda proprietà, ownership of a property whose use belongs to someone else.[13][12] The derivatives nudismo and nudista are 20th-century words.[6][2]

Timeline

  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses nudo for “bare, lacking”.[6][7]
  • Before 1306 – Iacopone da Todi uses it for “naked” and has nuditate “nakedness”.[6]
  • Before 1472 – Leon Battista Alberti uses nudo as a noun for the naked figure in art.[6]
  • 16th century – Nudo is the name of a coin of Modena showing a naked putto.[14]
  • 1926 – Nocentini's first date for nudismo, DELI finds it in Panzini's dictionary in 1931.[2][6]
  • 1929 – Nudista is recorded, DELI's first record is from 1935.[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. naked, nude: of a person or a part of the body, not covered by clothes: Il bambino correva nudo sulla spiaggia.[7][15][4][1]
  2. Lightly dressed, not covered enough: Non uscire così nudo, fuori nevica.[7][15]
  3. Bare, lacking its usual covering (of hair, leaves, vegetation): In inverno gli alberi del viale restano nudi.[7][15][4]
  4. Unadorned, bare of furniture or decoration: Le pareti dell'ufficio erano ancora nude.[7][15][12]
  5. (figurative) Plain, unembellished, bare of comment: la nuda verità, nudo e crudo “bluntly, without softening”.[7][4][12]
  6. Of a blade, drawn, unsheathed.[7][15][13]
  7. (literary) Defenceless, destitute.[7][4][12]

Noun

  1. (art) A nude: the naked human body as a subject of art, and a painting, drawing, sculpture or photograph of it: Al museo c'è una sala dedicata ai nudi dell'Ottocento.[7][4][1]

Word family

  • nudità
  • nudismo
  • nudista
  • ignudo
  • gnudo
  • denudare
  • snudare
  • seminudo
  • nudamente
  • nudezza

Usage notes

Common phrases are a occhio nudo “with the naked eye”, a mani nude “with bare hands”, a piedi nudi “barefoot” and mettere a nudo “to lay bare, reveal”.[15][12][13] Nudo come un verme means “stark naked”.[7][4][12] Sabatini–Coletti labels ignudo literary.[4]

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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  3. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 704
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  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 c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  14. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2609
  15. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier