paese

Forms

paese m (plural paesi)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Old Italian paise, Old Italian paisi, Old Italian paiese and Old Italian paèxe.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pagēnsis, from the Late Latin adjective pāgēnsis (“of a country district; inhabitant of a district”), formed from Latin pāgus (“village; country district”).^[3][4][5][1] The adjective was used as a noun for “the land belonging to a village”, and Gregory of Tours already has it for a village.^[4][6] In the Latin of Lombard Italy in the 8th and 9th centuries it still named the inhabitant of a district or parish.^[6] Devoto notes the complete loss of the /ɡ/ before the front vowel.^[7]

The same word is Old French pais (10th century), modern French pays, Old Occitan paes, Friulian paîs, Venetian pajès, Piedmontese pais and Sicilian pajisi.^[2][8][1] Nocentini takes Catalan país, Spanish país and Portuguese país from the French word;^[4][6] DEI goes further and thinks that the Tuscan word itself probably came from Occitan, while the French form reached the northern Italian dialects and the Iberian Peninsula.^[4][6]

The Latin noun first meant a boundary stone fixed in the ground: it belongs with pangō (“to fix, drive in”) and goes back to Proto-Italic *pāgos and Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten, fix”).^[3][1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin paysius is recorded at Reggio Emilia in 1242.^[3] The first Italian record is in Giacomo da Lentini (before 1250), with the sense “a large stretch of inhabited and cultivated land”: “Troppo son dimorato / in lontano paisi” (I have stayed too long in a distant land).^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “nation, state, homeland” follows at the end of the 13th century in the Novellino, and “village, small town, with its land” in Berni (before 1535).^[3] DEI and Prati cite Dante for “region”.^[6][10] Painters used paese for a landscape, and paesaggio comes from French paysage, a painting term from 1493;^[3] Titian uses it in 1552.^[3]

Mandare a quel paese “to send someone packing” is a euphemism: Florentines said mandare a farsi buggerare, softened it to mandare a Borgo a Buggiano, a place in the Val di Nievole, then to a Borgo, and finally to “that place”.^[3] Paesi sottosviluppati is a calque of the English under-developed countries.^[3] Proverbs include paese che vai, usanza che trovi “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” and tutto il mondo è paese “people are the same everywhere”.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 6th century – Gregory of Tours uses Late Latin pagense for a village.^[6]
• 1242 – Medieval Latin paysius is recorded at Reggio Emilia.^[3]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini writes paisi for “land, country”.^[3][2]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses the word for “nation, homeland”.^[3]
• Before 1294 – Paesano “inhabitant” appears in Brunetto Latini.^[3]
• Before 1535 – Berni uses paese for a village.^[3]
• 1552 – Titian uses paesaggio.^[3]
• 1928 – Strapaese names a literary movement attached to rural Italian life.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A country, nation or state, often written with a capital: i Paesi dell'Unione europea.^{[5][13][14][1]}
2. One's own country, homeland: Dopo la guerra rientrò nel suo paese..^[5][13][11]
3. A village or small town: un paese di collina, lo scemo del paese, the village idiot.^{[5][14][11][1]}
4. The people of a village or country as a whole.^[12][11][15]
5. A region or stretch of land with common features: paesi caldi, hot lands.^[5][13][14]
6. (uncommon) A painted landscape.^[5][13][14]

Word family

• paesano
• paesaggio
• paesaggista
• paesaggistico
• paesista
• paesistico
• compaesano
• spaesato
• strapaese
• paesello
• paesino

Related words

• paesaggistica
• pagano
• Latin pagus
• French pays

Usage notes

The ⟨s⟩ is voiced, /z/.^[1][10] Mandare qualcuno a quel paese means “to tell someone to go to hell”.^[11][15] Il Bel Paese is Italy, il paese della cuccagna an imaginary land of plenty, and Paesi Bassi the Netherlands.^[1][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 350
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2719
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 723
11. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli