peggiorare

Forms

peggiorare (first-person singular present peggióro, first-person singular past historic peggiorài, past participle peggioràto, auxiliary (transitive, also alternatively when intransitive and with a person as the subject) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] Old forms include piggiorare, pegiorare and pigiorare.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin peiōrō (“to make worse”), a verb formed from Latin pēior (“worse”).^[5][6][7][1] DEI finds the Late Latin verb in the jurist Paulus.^[8][9] Devoto adds that the Italian verb was influenced by peggiore, and Wiktionary notes that it can also be read as that adjective with the ending -are.^[10][1] The Latin /j/ between vowels became /ddʒ/, as in peggio.^[1]

The Latin comparative serves as the comparative of malus (“bad”); the OLD compares it with Sanskrit पद्यते (pádyate, “falls”) and with pessum (“to the bottom”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bono Giamboni, who died in 1292, is the first to use the verb, in the transitive sense “to make worse”.^[5][7] The intransitive “to become worse” follows at the end of the 13th century in the Novellino.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used the verb for harming someone: in the Decameron a character complains “sì che tu mi piggioreresti in due modi” (“so you would do me harm in two ways”).^[9][3] That sense is now obsolete.^[12][13] Giovanni Villani writes that the Church, hoping to improve its position, made it much worse (troppo lo peggiorò).^[2]

Intransitive uses spread to the weather, a situation, and a patient whose condition worsens.^[7][4] In school language it also says that a pupil's marks are getting worse.^[7][3] DEI notes the derivatives peggioramento (14th century, Giovanni Villani) and peggiorativo, a grammatical term for a pejorative suffix.^[8]

Timeline

• 1268 – Zingarelli's date for the first record.^[12]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses the transitive verb.^[5][7]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses it intransitively, “to become worse”.^[5]
• 14th century – Peggioramento is recorded in Giovanni Villani.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To make worse, to aggravate: Con quelle parole hai solo peggiorato le cose.^[7][3][12]
2. (transitive, archaic) To harm, damage someone.^[7][3][4]
3. (intransitive) To become worse, to deteriorate: Nel pomeriggio il tempo è peggiorato.^[7][3][4]
4. (intransitive) Of a sick person, to get worse: Il paziente è peggiorato durante la notte.^[7][3][13]
5. (intransitive) Of a pupil, to get lower marks than before.^[7][3][4]

Word family

• peggioramento
• peggiorativo

Related words

• peggio
• peggiore
• migliorare
• Latin peior

Usage notes

Used intransitively it takes essere; of a person it may also take avere.^[3][12][1] The standard stress of the present is peggióro, while popular Tuscan has pèggioro.^[3][12][13] The opposite is migliorare.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 12, 937
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2822
9. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana