pedere

Forms

pedere (first-person singular present pèdo, first-person singular past historic pedétti or (traditional) pedètti or pedéi, no past participle)^[1] Old Italian also had the form Old Italian pedire, under which the TLIO files the word.^[2]

Etymology

GDLI calls it learned: it is borrowed from Latin pēdō (“to fart”).^[3][4][1] Prati also thought it perhaps a literary word.^[5] Meyer-Lübke, on the other hand, lists the Old Italian verb among the popular outcomes of the Latin word, beside Old French poire, Old Occitan peire and Spanish peer.^[6]

The Latin verb comes from Proto-Italic *pezdō, from Proto-Indo-European *pésdeti, a present formed on the root *pesd- (“to fart softly”).^[1][7] De Vaan notes that the shape of the root suggests an imitative formation.^[7] Related verbs are Ancient Greek βδέω (bdéō, “to fart”) and Lithuanian bezdėti.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Florentine poet Rustico Filippi, in the second half of the 13th century, with the sense “to pass wind”; the Old Italian forms are pedire, pedir and pedere.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb kept its single sense and was always a low, jocular word.^[2][4] Tommaseo cites Burchiello rhyming pedere with credere, and Battaglia quotes Sercambi on a bladder that “farted” when a person sat on it.^[9][3] GRADIT dates the form pedere to the first half of the 15th century and marks it obsolete.^[4]

Timeline

• Second half of the 13th century – Rustico Filippi uses the verb.^[2]
• First half of the 15th century – GRADIT's first date for pedere.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (obsolete) To fart, to pass wind.^[4][10][1]

Related words

• peto
• Latin pēdō

Usage notes

The verb has no past participle and so no compound tenses.^[10][1] DEI also lists an obsolete mineralogical noun pedère, a lustrous purplish-black gem, a learned word from Latin paederos, which is unrelated.^[11][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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, 923
4. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 756
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2818