pallido

Forms

pallido (feminine pallida, masculine plural pallidi, feminine plural pallide, superlative pallidissimo)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian palido and Old Italian paledo.^[2][3] The type with a single ⟨l⟩ is found in Pisan and Roman, and as Sicilian palitu.^[4]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin pallĭdus (“pale”), from palleō (“to be pale”).^[5][6][7][1] The same Latin word gave French pâle (whence the English word pale), Old Occitan pale, Spanish pálido and Portuguese pálido.^[6][8] REW and DEI consider the French word learned as well.^[8][4]

The Latin verb belongs with words for a pale colour: Lithuanian pal̃vas (“light yellow”), Old Norse fǫlr and Old High German falo (“faded”), which point to a form *polu̯o-.^[9][6] De Vaan notes that this does not explain the Latin -a-, and that the source may be a word *palu̯o- borrowed into the European languages.^[9]

The figurative sense “faint, vague” was taken to be modelled on the French adjective by Panzini in 1905 and by DEI.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is palido in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, of a face that has lost its colour from too much fasting and watching: “qual è palido nel volto per troppo vegghiare”.^[5][2] Jacopone uses the form paleda of a woman.^[2]

Semantic evolution

By 1305–1306 Giordano da Pisa uses palido for a weak colour, that of white lead.^[5] Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch use the word for faces and for pale violets.^[10][3] In literary use it can be active, “that makes pale”, as in Tasso's pallida morte.^[11][3]

The sense “weak, faint” is recorded by Tommaseo in 1871.^[5] Today non avere la più pallida idea means to have no idea at all, and a pallida imitazione is a poor copy.^[7][11][12] Viso pallido translates the American English paleface.^[2][11] In medicine there is febbre pallida, and in anatomy the globo pallido of the brain.^[11][13]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni writes palido.^[5]
• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses palido of a colour.^[5]
• About 1344 – Boccaccio uses pallidezza “paleness”.^[5]
• 1871 – Tommaseo records the sense “weak, faint”.^[5]
• 1905 – Panzini calls the figurative sense a borrowing from French.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. pale, without its natural colour, from illness, fear or strong emotion: Quando sentì la notizia diventò pallido.^[7][11][13]
2. Of a colour, light, faint: azzurro pallido.^[7][11][12]
3. Of light, dim, weak: un pallido sole d'inverno.^[7][13]
4. (figurative) Vague, faint: non ne ho la più pallida idea “I haven't the faintest idea”.^[7][11][12]
5. (figurative) Weak, mediocre, lacking force: un romanzo pallido e senza nerbo.^[7][11][12]
6. (literary) That makes pale: pallida morte.^[11]

Word family

• impallidire
• pallidezza
• pallidamente
• pallidiccio
• pallidore
• pallidume
• pallidino
• palliduccio

Related words

• pallente
• pallore
• Latin pallidus
• French pâle

Usage notes

The phrase pallido come un morto means deathly pale.^[7][11][12]

References

1. ^ a b c 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
3. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2733
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse