Etymologically
Log in

parola

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 21 October 2026 at 19:41. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /paˈrɔ.la/[1]

Forms

parola f (plural parole)[1] Old Italian also had paraula, paravola, parabola and paraola, and Tuscan and southern dialects have palòra.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *paraula, inherited from Late Latin parabola (“parable; word”), from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ, “comparison”), a noun of παραβάλλω (parabállō, “to place beside, compare”).[5][6][1] The intervocalic /b/ weakened and was lost, and the diphthong /au/ became /ɔ/, as in fola from fābula.[7][8]

The Greek word meant “comparison” and, as a term of rhetoric, is found in Seneca;[6] Christian writers used it for the parables of Jesus, and by the Vulgate it had come to mean simply “word”.[6] Nocentini traces the change to the Septuagint, where the Greek word rendered Biblical Hebrew מָשָׁל (māšāl), a word for both “comparison” and “saying, proverb”.[5][9] In the Church verbum had taken on the sense of the divine Word, and the Late Latin word replaced it in nearly all the Romance languages.[6][4][9] The outcomes include French parole, Occitan paraula, Catalan paraula, Friulian peraule, Dalmatian palaura and Spanish palabra.[5][9][1] parabola is the learned doublet.[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the letters of the Bolognese master G. Fava (1239–1250), in the sense “word, term”.[6] GDLI quotes the old form in the Ritmo cassinese: “Ei, paraola dissensata!” (oh, senseless word!).[3]

Semantic evolution

From “word” the noun soon covered speech in general and what one says: Dante uses it for the faculty of speech, and the Old Italian writers for a teaching or saying.[3][2][4] Old Italian also used parola for “permission”, a sense still found in Lucca and Pistoia.[11][4] The sense “promise, word of honour” (dare la parola, uomo di parola) belongs to the modern core.[12][7]

Several phrases follow French: gioco di parole is modelled on jeu de mots, parola d'ordine on mot d'ordre, and prendere in parola probably on prendre au mot.[6][4] Parola chiave renders English key word, and Saussure's parole gave the linguistic sense “individual use of language”.[6] The crossword was called parole incrociate by Giuseppe Aroldi.[6] Italian parola passed through Ottoman Turkish into modern Turkish parola (“password”).[1]

Timeline

  • 1239–1250 – G. Fava's letters have the first dated record.[6]
  • Before 1313 – Parola is used for “permission”.[11]
  • Before 1472 – Leon Battista Alberti uses parolaccia “swear word”.[6]
  • 1473 – Lorenzo de' Medici uses parolina.[6]
  • c. 1638 – German takes Parola “password” in Italianate spelling.[11]
  • 1927 – Panzini records parole incrociate “crossword”.[4]
  • 1928 – Paroliere “lyricist” appears, from French parolier.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A word, a unit of language, spoken or written: Non conosco questa parola.[12][7][10]
  2. (often plural) What someone says; remarks, words: Le sue parole mi hanno commosso.[12][10]
  3. Speech, the faculty of speaking: Per lo spavento ha perso la parola.[12][1]
  4. The right to speak in a meeting, the floor: prendere la parola, dare la parola.[12][13]
  5. A promise, one's word of honour: mantenere la parola, un uomo di parola.[12][7][1]
  6. (Christianity) The Word, the teaching of God or Christ: la Parola di Dio.[10][12]
  7. (computing) A word, a group of bits handled as one unit.[3]

Word family

  • parolaccia
  • parolaio
  • paroliere
  • parolina
  • parolona
  • parolone
  • paroletta

Usage notes

Common set phrases include in poche parole “in short”, in altre parole “in other words”, parola per parola “word for word” and parola d'ordine “password, slogan”.[13][7][14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 744
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2780
  5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  11. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  12. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli