olire

Forms

olire (first-person singular present olìsco, first-person singular past historic olìi, no past participle)^[1] The TLIO records forms such as Old Italian ulire, Old Italian ole and Old Italian ollente.^[2] The old third person singular was òle.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin olēre (“to smell”), moved into the fourth conjugation.^[5][4][1][6] The Zingarelli, Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti posit a Vulgar Latin *olīre.^[3][7][8] DEI notes that Latin already had the forms olĕre and olēre.^[6] The Latin verb gave Old Occitan oler, Old French oloir and Spanish oler.^[9] aulire is a doublet.^[1]

oleō comes from an older olō, from Proto-Italic *odō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed- (“to smell”), the root of odore.^[1] Devoto explains the ⟨l⟩ in place of ⟨d⟩ as a Sabine fashion of early Republican Rome.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Lombard poem of Pietro da Bescapè (1274), where the verb means to give off a fragrance.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb was used especially of heavenly glory spreading its scent.^[2] Dante has su per lo suol che d'ogne parte oliva (Purgatorio 28), and in Boccaccio a garden and a bedroom are fragrant with roses and orange blossom.^[5][11][12] Della Casa's Galateo warns that one should neither stink nor be scented: non si vuol né putire né olire.^[11]

Figuratively it meant to smack of something: Bembo says the old language molto più oliva di contado che di città, smelt more of the countryside than of the city.^[3][12] The verb has become archaic and poetic and is defective: it has no past participle.^[12][7][1]

Timeline

• 1274 – Pietro da Bescapè uses olire.^[2]
• Before 1276 – The Zingarelli's date of first record.^[3]
• Before 1313 – GRADIT's date of first record.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary, archaic) To give off a pleasant scent, to be fragrant; olezzare.^[5][7][8][1]
2. (figurative, obsolete) To be redolent of something, to call it to mind.^[5][3][1]

Word family

• olente

Related words

• olezzo
• olore
• odore
• aulire
• olezzare
• Latin oleō

Usage notes

Only the present and imperfect indicative, the infinitive, the present participle olente and the gerund are in use.^[7][12] The present is olisco, olisci, olisce.^[3][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2640
7. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)