ordine

Forms

ordine m (plural ordini)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ōrdō (“row, line; rank; order”), from the accusative.^[2][3][4][1] DEI and the GDLI class it as a learned word, while Nocentini lists it among the words common to all Romance languages: there the popular outcome is Old French orne (“rank”), beside the learned French ordre, and the word is Occitan orde, Spanish orden, Portuguese ordem and Sardinian órdine.^[5][6][3][7] The Latin noun also passed into Old Irish as ord and into Old High German as ordena.^[5]

According to DELI the word first belonged to technical language, for the order of the threads in the weft; from there it came to mean a row, a citizen's place in the legal and religious order, a place in battle and finally a command.^[2] Nocentini places it in the family of ōrdior (“to lay the warp”), the source of ordire, and traces it to Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to fit together”).^[3] De Vaan finds that link attractive but notes that the extension in /d/ is not attested elsewhere for that root, and GRADIT and DELI call the origin uncertain.^[8][4][2] The original Latin verb from the noun was ōrnō (“to equip; to adorn”), and ōrdinō (“to arrange”) was made later, when the link with the noun had faded.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the Novellino (late 13th century), for the arrangement of things in space or time according to a plan.^[2][4][3] Old Italian also had the forms órdene, órdeno and ordino, and early writers sometimes made the noun feminine.^[6][9]

Semantic evolution

Most of the modern senses are in place by the 14th century: “class, rank” in Giovanni Villani (before 1348), “religious order”, “command” and “commission, order for goods” in Boccaccio (1348–1353), and the sacrament of holy orders, ordine sagrato, in Giordano da Pisa (before 1311).^[2] The military sense “formation” follows in Machiavelli (before 1527), “sequence, ranking” in Ariosto (1532), the taxonomic rank in a translation of Buffon (1771), and “professional body” in Tommaseo (1869).^[2]

Ordine del giorno “agenda” has been claimed as English, but it was always taken for a French parliamentary phrase (French 1778, English 1792), and purists opposed it in vain.^[2] Fino a nuovo ordine “until further notice” is a calque of French, as are military phrases such as ritirarsi in buon ordine.^[2][10] The verb ordinare (late 13th century) and the adjective ordinario come from the Latin derivatives of the noun.^[2][3]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses ordine for arrangement.^[2]
• Before 1311 – Giordano da Pisa uses ordine sagrato for holy orders.^[2]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses it for a social class.^[2]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it for a religious order and for a command.^[2]
• Before 1527 – Machiavelli uses it for a military formation.^[2]
• 1771 – It is used for a rank in the classification of animals.^[2]
• 1778 – French ordre du jour is recorded, the model of ordine del giorno.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. order, tidiness, the right arrangement of things: Metti in ordine la tua scrivania.^{[4][10][11][1]}
2. The criterion or sequence of an arrangement: in ordine alfabetico.^[4][10][11]
3. Discipline, the keeping of rules; public order: Il presidente ha richiamato all'ordine i deputati.^[4][12]
4. A command, instruction: Il capitano diede l'ordine di partire all'alba.^[4][10][1]
5. (commerce) An order for goods or services: Abbiamo ricevuto un ordine di cento copie.^[10][13][1]
6. Kind, category, level of quality: un albergo di prim'ordine.^[4][10]
7. A professional body: l'ordine dei medici.^[4][10]
8. A religious order, or a medieval order of knights: l'ordine dei Francescani.^[4][2]
9. (religion) Holy orders, the sacrament of the priesthood; a grade of the church hierarchy.^[4][10]
10. (biology) An order, the rank between class and family.^[4][12][1]
11. (architecture) One of the classical orders: ordine dorico.^[4][1]

Word family

• ordinare
• ordinario
• ordinale
• ordinamento
• ordinanza
• disordine
• contrordine
• sottordine
• straordinario

Related words

• ordinazione
• ordire
• ornare
• coordinare
• Latin ordo
• French ordre

Usage notes

Ordine del giorno is the agenda of a meeting, and all'ordine del giorno means “on the agenda” or, figuratively, “everyday”.^[2][4] In ordine a means “with regard to” in bureaucratic language.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2670
6. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET, p. 3, 646
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana