oso

Forms

oso (feminine osa, masculine plural osi, feminine plural ose)^[1] Old Venetian had a plural olsi with a hypercorrect ⟨l⟩, and Vicentine onso is recorded in 1560.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ausus (“having dared”), the past participle of audeō (“to dare”).^[2][3][4][1] The LEI finds that the participle lived on only in Tuscan and reached some other dialects through the literary language; the learned form auso is rare.^[2][1] Late Latin already used the participle in ausus sum “I dared” for the present, and the construction lives on in Italian, where essere with the adjective means “to dare”.^[2] The same Latin word gave Old French os.^[5][6]

The verb osare is a separate formation from the same participle: it continues Late Latin ausāre, formed on the participle.^[7][8] The Latin verb is derived from avidus (“greedy”), and first meant “to want very much”, as the old formula sōdēs (“if you please”) from “if you want very much” shows; it then came to mean “to dare”.^[9] Nocentini places it with aveō (“to desire”), the source of avaro.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The LEI's first record of oso “bold, daring” is a poem by Monte at the end of the 13th century, and Dante used it of a word or act that shows daring: Forse la mia parola par troppo osa (“perhaps my word seems too bold”).^[2][4][10] Zingarelli dates the word to 1308.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian oso was used freely of people, of their acts and of their words, and as an adverb in Boccaccio's uscire oso “to go out boldly” (about 1340); an Old Italian adverb osamente is recorded at Cortona about 1300.^[2] With a following infinitive, essere oso meant “to dare”: Dante speaks of Cato, of whom he non fui di sopra oso di parlare (“did not dare to speak above”), and Petrarch and Parini kept the construction.^[12][2]

A noun oso “daring, recklessness”, from Latin ausus “a venture”, appears in the 14th-century Bible translation, and Old Genoese had a to osso “at your own risk”.^[13] The adjective is still recorded in Florence in 1614, but today it is archaic or literary: D'Annunzio wrote deh, figliuol mio, non essere tropp'oso (“ah, my son, don't be too bold”).^[2][14][3]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Oso “bold” is recorded in a poem by Monte.^[2]
• About 1300 – The adverb osamente “boldly” appears in a laud from Cortona.^[2]
• 1308 – Zingarelli's date for the word.^[11]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses oso of a bold word.^[2][4]
• About 1340 – Boccaccio writes uscire oso “to go out boldly”.^[2]
• 1560 – Vicentine onso is recorded.^[2]
• 1614 – Oso is recorded in Florence.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) bold, daring, audacious: un cavaliere oso e leale.^[3][11][10]
2. (literary) Of words or acts: showing daring, or presumption.^[3][12]
3. (literary) In essere oso with an infinitive: to dare: Nessuno era oso di interromperlo.^[14][11][12]

Related words

• osare
• auso
• audace
• Latin audeō

Usage notes

GRADIT also lists a separate oso, a variant of osio “monose” in biochemistry;^[3][12][1] Treccani explains it as the suffix -oso used as a noun.^[3][12][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 2566
3. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
7. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d e Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 3, 2568
14. ^ 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