orologio

Forms

orologio m (plural orologi)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian orilogio, Old Italian arlogio, Old Italian relogio, Old Italian reloio and Sicilian riloiu.^[2] Older written variants are orilògio, orlòggio and orlòglio.^[3]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin hōrologium (“sundial, water clock”), from Ancient Greek ὡρολόγιον (hōrológion).^[4][5][6][1] The Greek word is a compound of ὥρα (hṓra, “hour; season”) and a derivative of λέγω (légō) in the sense “to count”, so that it meant “what counts or tells the hour”; in Greek and Latin it named sand, water and sun clocks.^[5][6][7][8] Many dialect forms go back instead to a spoken variant Vulgar Latin *horilogium.^[4]

The same Latin word is French horloge (12th century), Old Occitan relotge and Catalan rellotge, and Spanish took reloj from Catalan.^[5][9][10] In Italian it competed with the Tuscan oriolo, probably from a diminutive Latin horāriolum of hōrārium (“clock”); the two forms still alternated in the 16th century, Florentine use favouring the short form and Roman use the long one, until the Tuscan form fell back as too vernacular.^[4][11] Some derivatives are later loans from French: orologiere is French horloger and orologeria is French horlogerie.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Florentine Sfera of Zucchero Bencivenni (1313–1314), where the word refers to the measuring of time and to the instrument that marks the hours.^[2] DELI dates it before 1321, from Dante, who in Paradiso X compares the blessed spirits to a clock that calls the Church to morning prayer (“come orologio che ne chiami / nell'ora che la sposa di Dio surge / a mattinar lo sposo”).^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the mechanical clock that marked the hours with a bell, an astronomical instrument showing the places of the Sun and Moon in the zodiac, and also the sundial.^[2] Public mechanical clocks were spreading in the same years: in 1344 a clock designed by Giacomo Dondi was placed on the town hall of Padua, and his son Giovanni Dondi “dell'Orologio” built another for Pavia.^[11]

Trades and shops followed the object: orologeria, the art of clockmaking, is recorded in 1770–1771 and later also names the shop, and orologiaio “clockmaker, watchmaker” in 1824, beside the older oriolaio.^[4] In the 17th century Francesco Redi wrote of a respected man in Florence who was “very good at his trade of making clocks”.^[12] Figuratively a machine or a team that works perfectly, or a very punctual person, è un orologio.^[6][13] The phrase orologio biologico, the body's internal clock, was in Italian newspapers by 1984.^[14]

Timeline

• 1313–1314 – Zucchero Bencivenni's Sfera has the first record.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses orologio in the Paradiso.^[4]
• 1344 – A clock by Giacomo Dondi is placed on the town hall of Padua.^[11]
• 1770–1771 – Orologeria “clockmaking” is recorded.^[4]
• 1824 – Orologiaio “clockmaker” is recorded.^[4]
• 1984 – Orologio biologico “biological clock” appears in La Repubblica.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. clock or watch: an instrument that measures time in hours and their fractions: Il mio orologio va avanti di cinque minuti.^[6][7][1]
2. (figurative) Something that works perfectly; also a very punctual person: Quella squadra è un orologio.^[6][13]
3. A card game in which the banker lays out the cards like the hours on a dial.^[6]

Word family

• orologeria
• orologiaio
• orologiero

Related words

• oriolo
• ora
• French horloge
• Latin hōrologium

Usage notes

The phrase come un orologio means “perfectly, like clockwork”.^[7][15] DEI records a separate learned orologio (1818), the breviary of the Greek rite, from Greek hōrológion,^[10] and in some northern regions orologio is a name of the cherry laurel, altered from lauro regio.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2681
11. ^ a b c d Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 715
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. Supplemento 2009
15. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12