onda

Forms

onda f (plural onde)^[1] Old forms are Old Italian unda and, in central and southern Italy, Old Italian onna, with -nd- assimilated to -nn-.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ŭnda (“wave; water”).^[3][4][5][1] The word is pan-Romance: French onde, Occitan onda, Catalan ona, Spanish onda, Portuguese onda, Sardinian unda, Dalmatian yonda and Romanian undă.^[4][6]

DELI notes that “water” was the original sense of the Latin word.^[3] It comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for water, Proto-Indo-European *wódr̥ (“water”), with the oblique stem *udn-: de Vaan and Wiktionary explain the Latin word as a collective “body of water” in which the nasal moved before the ⟨d⟩ and which was taken as a feminine singular, “wave”.^[7][1] The same root gave Umbrian 𐌖𐌕𐌖𐌓 (utur, “water”), Ancient Greek ὕδωρ (húdōr, “water”), Hittite watar, Lithuanian vanduõ and the English word water.^[7][4][1] Nocentini and Devoto see in the feminine noun water as an active, animate force, against the neuter forms that treat it as a thing.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in King Enzo, before 1272, for a wave of the sea: Giorno non ho di posa, / come nel mare l'onda (“I have no day of rest, like the wave in the sea”).^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Poets soon used onda for the sea itself (Guido delle Colonne, before 1290) and for the waters of sea, rivers and lakes (Boccaccio, 1341–1342).^[3] Dante compares the damned to l'onda là sovra Cariddi, the wave over Charybdis that breaks against the one it meets.^[2]

Figurative senses followed: a great quantity in the 14th century, a wavy line in 1550, a surge of feelings in 1598, and in physics, with Galileo, the waves that carry a vibration through a medium.^[3] Ondina, the water nymph, came with the Romantic taste for the German Undine and is recorded in 1869.^[3][4]

Timeline

• Before 1272 – King Enzo uses onda for a wave.^[3][5]
• Before 1290 – Guido delle Colonne uses it for the sea.^[3]
• 1316 – Ondeggiare “to wave, to sway” is first recorded.^[4]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses onde for the waters of a sea or river.^[3]
• 1550 – Cosimo Bartoli uses it for a wavy line.^[3]
• Before 1642 – Galileo uses it in physics.^[3]
• 1869 – Ondina “water nymph” is recorded.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wave: a mass of water that rises and falls above the level of a sea, lake or river, usually driven by the wind.^[5][9][10]
2. (literary) The water of the sea, a river or a lake; the sea.^[5][10][11]
3. A wave-like curve or fold: capelli a onde, wavy hair.^[5][12]
4. A great mass of people or things pouring in.^[5][11]
5. (figurative) A surge of a feeling or impulse: un'onda di nostalgia.^[5][10]
6. (physics) A periodic oscillation that travels through a medium or a field.^[5][10][12]
7. (medicine) A wave in the trace of a recording, such as an electrocardiogram.^[5]

Word family

• ondata
• ondeggiare
• ondeggiamento
• ondeggiante
• ondina
• ondoso
• ondosità
• ondare
• ondazione

Related words

• inondare
• esondare
• ondivago
• abbondare
• ridondare
• vetro
• Latin unda

Usage notes

Idioms include essere sulla cresta dell'onda, to be at the height of success, seguire l'onda, to go along with everyone else, and onda anomala, a freak wave and figuratively a sudden upheaval.^[11][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 956
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)