patire

Forms

patire (first-person singular present patìsco, first-person singular past historic patìi, past participle patìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old Italian forms include padire, patere and pater, with the old present pato, pate beside patisco.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *patīre (“to suffer, endure”), a Vulgar Latin active form that replaced the classical deponent Latin patī (“to undergo, suffer”).^[4][5][6][1] The Vulgar Latin verb survives in Italian, Romanian and the western Romance languages, but not in French or Occitan.^[7] It gave Romanian păți, Old Spanish padir (modern Spanish padecer) and Portuguese padecer, and was borrowed into Welsh as peidio.^[8][5][7] Italian also passed it on to Friulian, Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetian, Romansh and Sardinian.^[1]

The origin of the Latin verb is uncertain.^[4][9] It has been compared with Ancient Greek πῆμα (pêma, “suffering”), which would point to a stem Proto-Indo-European *ph₁-t-, but de Vaan notes that the formation of the verb remains unexplained; he also considers a derivation from the root of Latin petō, Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to fly, fall”), “it befalls me” becoming “I undergo”.^[9][5][10] DEI and GDLI compare it with Ancient Greek πάσχω (páskhō, “to suffer”).^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates the first record before 1250, in the Sicilian poet Rinaldo d'Aquino, with the transitive sense “to undergo something, to put up with it”.^[4] The TLIO's first attestation is in Guido delle Colonne, in the second half of the 13th century, where the verb means to suffer the effect of something, such as a pain, a loss or a hardship.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive sense “to suffer” is recorded before 1321 in Dante.^[4] From the scholastic language of the 14th century the verb also took the sense “to be acted upon”, the opposite of acting: Dante writes of violence as “when that which suffers contributes nothing to that which forces” (quando quel che pate / niente conferisce a quel che sforza).^{[4][7][11][6]} The Old Italian verb could also mean “to allow, to tolerate”, and “to be compatible with something”.^[2]

In 1550 Vasari used it of things, “to be damaged, to deteriorate”.^[4] The infinitive was used as a noun, il patire “suffering”, from the late 13th century in Jacopone da Todi.^[2][6] Of its derivatives, patimento “suffering” is recorded before 1311 in Giordano da Pisa, and the past participle patito became an adjective “sickly, run-down” (1829) and a noun “devotee, fan”: Zingarelli recorded it in 1922, along with the Neapolitan phrase patito di Rinaldo, said of the passionate listeners to the tales of Rinaldo and the paladins.^[4]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Rinaldo d'Aquino uses patire “to undergo, to endure”.^[4]
• Second half of the 13th century – Guido delle Colonne uses the verb in Tuscan.^[2]
• Late 13th century – Jacopone da Todi uses the infinitive as a noun, patire “suffering”.^[2]
• Before 1311 – Giordano da Pisa uses patimento.^[4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses the intransitive sense “to suffer”.^[4]
• 1550 – Giorgio Vasari uses it of things, “to deteriorate”.^[4]
• 1829 – Patito “sickly, run-down” is recorded in Boerio's Venetian dictionary.^[4]
• 1922 – Zingarelli records patito “enthusiast, fan”.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To suffer or endure something unpleasant: hunger, cold, an insult, a loss; also of things, to be damaged by something: Abbiamo patito il caldo per tutto agosto.^[6][12][13]
2. (transitive) To bear badly, to be sensitive to: Questa pianta patisce il gelo.^[6]
3. (transitive, chiefly in negative sentences) To tolerate, to stand; of things, to allow: un ordine che non patisce ritardi (an order that brooks no delay).^[6][13][14]
4. (transitive, literary) To undergo an action, to be acted upon, as opposed to acting.^[6][15][14]
5. (intransitive) To suffer from an illness or a feeling, with di: patire di emicrania, patire di vertigini.^[6][13][16]
6. (intransitive) To suffer, to go through hardship or pain;^[6][16][14] finire di patire, to die after a long illness or a hard life.^[6][16][14]
7. (intransitive) To be grieved, to be hurt by something, with per.^[6][13][16]
8. (intransitive) Of things, to be damaged, to suffer harm: Il raccolto ha patito per la grandine.^[6][13][14]
9. (intransitive, dated) To lack, to be short of something, with di.^[6][14]

Noun

1. suffering, patimento.^[6][3]

Word family

• patimento
• patito
• patibile
• patitore

Related words

• compatire
• passione
• paziente
• pazienza
• Latin patior

Usage notes

An archaic patire “to digest” (1304–1308) is a separate verb, a Tuscan adaptation of Old Italian padire, paidire, of uncertain origin, which is still widespread in the dialects; it occurs in Dante's Convivio, where his food is to be both tasted and digested (gustare e patire).^[6][15][12] Meyer-Lübke files the northern Italian paidir “to digest” under another etymon.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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, 824
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c 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 l m n o De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2804
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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
16. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana