Etymologically
Log in

passato

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 21 October 2026 at 19:20. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /pasˈsa.to/[1]

Forms

passato (feminine passata, masculine plural passati, feminine plural passate). As a noun, m (plural passati).[1] An old form is Old Italian pasado.[2]

Etymology

It is the past participle of passare “to pass”, used as an adjective and, from the 14th century, as a noun.[3][4][5][6][1] The verb continues Vulgar Latin *passāre, a verb formed in spoken Latin on passus (“step, pace”).[3][4]

The grammatical term, as in ⟨passato prossimo⟩ and ⟨passato remoto⟩, belongs to the 16th century, and DEI compares the French names of the tenses, French passé défini and passé indéfini.[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, with the sense “gone by, past”.[3] GDLI quotes him: “Dice di recarsi a memoria li anni passati” (he says one should call to mind the years gone by).[2] Devoto–Oli and Nocentini date the word to the first half of the 14th century, Sabatini–Coletti to the 13th.[6][4][8]

Semantic evolution

As a noun, “the time gone by”, it is first recorded in Boccaccio in 1353, and in Bembo's grammar of 1525 as the name of a tense.[3][7] Old Italian also used the participle for the dead: GRADIT quotes Boccaccio, “traevano delle lor case li corpi de' già passati” (they carried the bodies of those already dead out of their houses), a sense now literary.[5][9]

The food sense, a purée of vegetables or other food pressed through a sieve, is recorded from 1870 and was at first Tuscan: Panzini wrote in 1908 that it was not used outside Tuscany.[3] Pellegrino Artusi complained in 1891 that, to be understood, he would have to call his passato di patate a purée.[10] From the participle's sense “past its best” come uses such as frutta passata, overripe fruit, and bellezza passata, faded beauty.[9][11] The idiom acqua passata, something over and done with, is the short form of the proverb acqua passata non macina più (water that has gone by turns no more mills).[9][11]

Timeline

  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni writes of li anni passati.[3][2]
  • 1353 – Boccaccio uses il passato for the time gone by.[3]
  • 1525 – Pietro Bembo uses the word for a tense of the verb.[3]
  • 1870 – Passato “purée” is recorded in Fanfani.[3]
  • 1891 – Artusi notes that purée is more widely understood than passato.[10]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. past, gone by, earlier than the present: Nei secoli passati qui c'era un lago.[5][6][8]
  2. last, just ended (placed after the noun): Il mese passato ha piovuto ogni giorno.[5][6][9]
  3. No longer current, out of fashion: un modo di vestire ormai passato.[5][6][8]
  4. Past its best: no longer fresh, overripe or overcooked; also, of beauty, faded: Queste pesche sono un po' passate.[5][8][11]
  5. Of a person, who held a post before someone else: i passati presidenti dell'associazione.[5][6]
  6. (literary, archaic) dead.[5][6][9]

Noun

  1. The time gone by and what happened in it, the past; also a person's earlier life: Non parla mai del suo passato.[5][8][11]
  2. (grammar) A past tense, as in passato prossimo and passato remoto.[8][11][1]
  3. (cooking) A purée of vegetables or other food pressed through a sieve, or a soup made from it: passato di verdure.[3][1]
  4. (literary, in the plural) Forebears, the people of earlier ages.[5][9]

Word family

  • passatista
  • passatismo
  • passatistico

Usage notes

Set phrases include in passato “formerly”, avere un passato “to have had many experiences (often questionable ones)” and acqua passata.[5][9][11] As an adjective of time it follows the noun (l'anno passato), whereas in other uses it can precede it (le passate stagioni).[9][12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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, p. 12, 752
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2793
  8. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  10. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 373
  11. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  12. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli