Etymologically
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ostaggio

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Pronunciation

  • /osˈtad.d͡ʒo/[1]

Forms

ostaggio m (plural ostaggi)[1] Old forms include ostagio, obstagio and Lodigiano ostazo, and an older staggio is recorded.[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is a Gallicism of the early centuries, borrowed from Old French ostage (1080; modern otage).[6][7][3] The French word is a derivative of Old French oste (“host, guest”), from Latin hospes (“host; guest”), through Medieval Latin hospitaticum.[6][7][8][9] Its first meaning, like that of Old Occitan ostatge, was “lodging”: in phrases meaning “to take into lodging” the hostages were in fact lodged in the house of the lord who had demanded them, and the word passed from the stay to the persons.[7][10][5] The same French word gave English hostage.[7][5]

The older explanation, from Diez, derived the word from Vulgar Latin *obsidāticum, from Latin obses (“hostage”);[6][11][12][8] DELI follows Tobler (1879) in rejecting it, but Devoto–Oli still gives it, and Devoto saw a blend of the two.[6][11][12][8] The Medieval Latin of Bologna has hostadigus (1248), matching the old word ostatico.[6]

The Latin noun is a compound of hostis (“stranger, enemy”) and the root of potis (“able”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰóstipotis (“master of guests”).[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Nocentini date the word to the second half of the 13th century, in the form ostagio.[3][7] Uguccione da Lodi has ostaço at the beginning of the 14th century, and the Tuscan translation of Livy uses ostaggio for a person handed over as a pledge to an enemy or ally.[6]

Semantic evolution

For centuries the word belonged to war and diplomacy: a person, often of rank, given or taken as a guarantee that a treaty or condition would be kept.[2][14] International law allowed the taking of hostages within limits until the Geneva Convention of 1949 banned it.[2] Already in the 19th century Tommaseo noted that brigands had learned to take hostages for ransom, and the modern sense of a person seized by criminals or terrorists is recorded from 1958.[14][6]

Timeline

  • 1080 – Old French ostage is recorded.[6][3]
  • 1248 – Medieval Latin hostadigus is recorded at Bologna.[6]
  • Second half of the 13th century – Ostagio is recorded in Italian.[3][7]
  • Early 14th century – Uguccione da Lodi uses ostaço.[6]
  • 1958 – The sense “person seized by criminals” is recorded.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hostage held by an enemy as a guarantee that conditions will be met or agreements kept, under threat of reprisal: Gli eserciti si scambiarono gli ostaggi.[3][11][4][1]
  2. A person seized by criminals or terrorists to obtain a ransom, an escape or other demands: I rapinatori hanno liberato l'ostaggio dopo tre ore.[3][11][9]

Usage notes

The usual phrases are prendere in ostaggio and tenere in ostaggio, also figuratively of a city or a country held to ransom.[3][9][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  4. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2697
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  9. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  11. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  12. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  14. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  15. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse