pagano

Forms

pagano (feminine pagana, masculine plural pagani, feminine plural pagane)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin pāgānus (“villager; civilian”), an adjective, often used as a noun, formed from pāgus (“village, country district”) with the suffix -ānus.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} DEI and the GDLI call it semi-learned.^[6][7] The word is shared by the Romance languages: French païen, Catalan pagà, Spanish pagano, Portuguese pagão and Romanian păgân.^[3][8] In Spanish the word has also kept the old sense “peasant”.^[6][8] pāgus itself goes back to Proto-Italic *pāgos and Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten, fix”), perhaps as “a space with fixed boundaries”.^[1]

pāgānus meant “villager” already in Cicero, and in soldiers' language “civilian”, as opposed to mīles (“soldier”).^[2][3][6] The Christian sense “not a believer” first appears in an inscription from Catania of the early 4th century, about a girl born a pagan and baptised at eighteen months.^[2] Why the sense changed is disputed.^[2][9] The oldest and most widespread view, going back to Baronius and Du Cange, holds that the old religion lasted longer in the villages than in the towns.^{[2][10][11][12]} DELI quotes the objection that no source shows pagan cult ending earlier in the towns, at least through the 4th century, when the word is already recorded.^[2] A second view, first put forward by Alciati and taken up by Zahn and Harnack, starts from “civilian”: Christians saw themselves as soldiers of Christ and called unbelievers “civilians”; the scholar DELI quotes thinks it the most likely, and Nocentini and Devoto–Oli adopt it.^[2][3][13] A third view, of Bickel and Boscherini, takes the pāgānus as a member of the community of the pagus, faithful to its own sacred festivals.^[2][9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Ritmo laurenziano, a Tuscan poem of the second half of the 12th century, in the line Da ce 'l mondo fue pagano (“since the world was pagan”), as an adjective meaning “not Christian”.^[14][2][15] The noun, a follower of a pagan religion, is first found in the Fiore di virtù at the end of the 13th century.^[2][16]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the word named the followers of the ancient polytheistic religions and, by extension, of other faiths, and it could also mean simply “of classical antiquity” or serve as an insult.^[14] In the chivalric poems of Ariosto and Tasso the pagano is a Saracen, a Muslim.^[6][16][4] Salvini, in the 18th century, used it for a civilian as opposed to a soldier, after the Latin sense.^[6][16]

Derivatives followed early: paganesimo and its variants paganismo and paganesmo in Giordano da Pisa, Dante and Cavalca, and paganizzare in Francesco da Barberino in 1314.^[2] The modern sense “opposed to Christian values, devoted to earthly pleasure in the manner of the ancients” is dated by DELI from 1958.^[2][4] In Venetian tosse pagana was whooping cough, and in Friulian the word was used for maize.^[8]

Timeline

• 4th century – A Latin inscription from Catania uses pagana in the Christian sense.^[2]
• Late 12th century – The Ritmo laurenziano has the adjective.^[14][2]
• Late 13th century – The noun appears in the Fiore di virtù.^[2]
• Before 1311 – Giordano da Pisa uses paganismo.^[2]
• 1314 – Paganizzare appears in Francesco da Barberino.^[2]
• Before 1342 – Paganesimo is recorded in Domenico Cavalca.^[2]
• 1958 – The sense “indifferent or opposed to Christian principles” is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. pagan: of paganism, especially the polytheistic religion of the Greeks and Romans: un tempio pagano.^[4][13][11]
2. Following a pagan religion; not Christian: un popolo ancora pagano.^[4][13][17]
3. Drawing on the values of classical antiquity, without asceticism and open to earthly pleasure, often in contrast with Christian morals.^[4][13][17]

Noun

1. A pagan, a follower of a pagan religion; by extension, anyone who is not Christian, a heathen.^[13][11][17]
2. (literary) In the chivalric poems, a Saracen, a Muslim.^[13][4][9]
3. One who rejects Christian teaching or morals.^[18][12]
4. (history) In ancient Rome, one who lived outside the city district.^[4]

Word family

• paganeggiare
• paganesimo
• paganizzare
• pagania
• paganità
• paganamente
• paganesco

Related words

• paese
• pago
• Latin pāgus

Usage notes

Pagano is also the third person plural of the present of pagare, “(they) pay”.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 s 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2720
7. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ a b c d e f 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 Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 358
16. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 724
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
19. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org