ordinare

Forms

ordinare (first-person singular present órdino, first-person singular past historic ordinài, past participle ordinàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian also had ordenare.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ōrdinō (“to arrange in rows; to regulate”), a learned word.^[3][4][1][2] The Latin verb comes from ōrdō (“row; order; rule”).^[3][5][6] In Ecclesiastical Latin it also meant to ordain a priest.^[3] The same Latin verb is French ordonner (earlier Old French ordener), Spanish ordenar and Romanian urdina (“to arrange; to follow”).^[3][7][8]

According to de Vaan the older verb from the noun was ōrnō (“to equip, adorn”), built directly on the stem; when the link between noun and verb had faded, a new verb was formed with the general sense “to put in order”, while the older verb kept the special sense that survives in ornare.^[6][9] The origin of the noun is uncertain; de Vaan finds a link with the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to fit”) of Latin artus (“joint”) attractive.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Novellino, at the end of the 13th century, both for putting things in order and, in the literary sense, for disposing something to an end.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

The ecclesiastical sense, to confer holy orders, appears in Iacopo Passavanti (1354), and “to command” in Matteo Villani (before 1363).^[10] Dante writes in the Convivio that justice ordina noi ad amare (“disposes us to love”), a sense now archaic.^[4][11] The sense “to commission, order goods” is recorded in Machiavelli, before 1527, and Machiavelli also uses the verb for founding states on laws.^[10][12]

Modern uses include ordering food and drink in a bar or restaurant, a doctor prescribing a treatment, and in mathematics giving a set an order relation.^[13][12][11] In southern dialects the plural noun ordinari means menstruation.^[8] The derivative ordinanza was formed on French ordonnance.^[3]

Timeline

• End of the 13th century – The Novellino uses ordinare.^[10]
• 1354 – Iacopo Passavanti uses it for conferring holy orders.^[10]
• Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses it for “to command”.^[10]
• Before 1527 – Machiavelli uses it for “to commission”.^[10]
• 16th century – Riordinare is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put in order, to arrange; to tidy up: ordinare le foto per data.^[4][5][13]
2. To organise an institution by rules: to organise the army or a public service.^[4][5][11]
3. (figurative) To put ideas or thoughts in logical order.^[4][5][11]
4. (mathematics) To give a set an order relation.^[4][13][12]
5. To order, to command: Il capitano ordinò di ritirarsi.^[5][13][12]
6. To prescribe: Il medico mi ha ordinato degli antibiotici.^[13][12][11]
7. To order goods or work; in a bar or restaurant, to ask for what one wants: Signori, cosa ordinate?^[13][12][11]
8. (religion) To ordain: È stato ordinato sacerdote l'anno scorso.^[13][12][10]
9. (literary) To dispose or direct to an end.^[4][12][11]

Word family

• ordinamento
• ordinanza
• ordinato
• ordinata
• ordinativo
• ordinatore
• ordinazione
• riordinare
• riordinamento

Related words

• ordigno
• ordinarsi
• ordine
• sovraordinare
• comandare
• ornare
• Latin ōrdinō
• Latin ōrdō

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
3. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ 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
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2669
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse