nuocere

Forms

nuocere (first-person singular present nòccio or nuòccio, first-person singular past historic nòcqui, past participle nociùto or (rare) nuociùto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old and literary Tuscan has Old Italian nocere, and old northern texts have Old Italian nosere and Old Italian noxere.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *nŏcere, the Vulgar Latin form of classical Latin noceō (“to harm, hurt”) moved from the second conjugation to the third.^[4][5][6][7] The same verb is French nuire (Old French nuisir beside nuire), Occitan nozer, Catalan noure and Sardinian nòghere.^[5][8][9] DEI notes that Late Latin increasingly used the verb transitively, a use Italian did not keep.^[8]

The Latin verb is a causative, “to cause death, ruin”, from the root of Latin nex (“violent death, killing”), which is also in Latin necō (“to kill”) and Ancient Greek νεκρός (nekrós, “dead”).^[4][5][10] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *nokeje- (“to cause death”) and Proto-Indo-European *noḱ-éye- (“to make disappear, cause death”).^[10]

The stressed short /o/ of Latin became the diphthong ⟨uo⟩ (⟨nuoce⟩); where the stress falls on the ending the plain ⟨o⟩ was usual, hence ⟨nocevo⟩, ⟨nocque⟩, ⟨nociuto⟩.^[11][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the Sicilian poet Stefano Protonotaro, before 1250, in the sense “to do harm, hurt”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to the Latin: to cause physical or moral harm, with the person or thing harmed introduced by a.^[12][7] Old texts use it widely: Petrarch's man “who waits for the place and time to harm”, and Dante's Non ti noccia la tua paura “let not your fear harm you”.^[11][7] The GDLI records older senses such as “to annoy” and “to make trouble”.^[2]

Two proverbs keep the verb in everyday speech: tentar non nuoce “there's no harm in trying” and non tutto il male vien per nuocere “not every misfortune comes to do harm”, said when some good comes out of a setback.^[13][3][14] Derivatives include nocivo “harmful”, taken from Latin nocīvus in the 13th century, and nocumento “harm”, from Medieval Latin, in the 14th.^[5]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Stefano Protonotaro uses nuocere.^[4]
• 13th century – nocivo “harmful” is borrowed from Latin.^[5]
• 14th century – nocumento “harm” is taken from Medieval Latin.^[5]
• 1958 – nocività “harmfulness” is first recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, + a) To harm, damage or be bad for someone or something, physically or morally: Il troppo zucchero nuoce ai denti.^[6][13][15]
2. (absolute) To do harm: tentar non nuoce “there's no harm in trying”.^[6][7]

Word family

• nocivo
• nocività
• nocumento
• nocevole
• nocimento

Related words

• Latin noceō
• French nuire

Usage notes

Forms with the stress on the stem keep uo (nuoce, nuoci), while the others may drop it: nocevo or nuocevo, nocerò or nuocerò; today the forms with uo are preferred there too.^[7][11] The present has noccio or nuoccio, the past historic nocqui, the past participle nociuto (rarely nuociuto); the auxiliary is avere.^[7][1]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 669
3. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ 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)
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2611
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse