Etymologically
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peggiore

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Pronunciation

  • /pedˈd͡ʒo.re/[1]

Forms

peggiore m or f by sense (plural peggiori)[1] Old Italian forms include peçor, pegiore, pezore and piggiore;[2][3][4] piggiore survived as an archaic variant.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pēior (“worse”), the comparative of malus (“bad”).[2][5][6][1] The same word is French pire, Occitan pejer, Catalan pejor and Spanish peor, and with the neuter peius Italian peggio and French pis.[5][7] Meyer-Lübke notes that the Latin word was pronounced with a doubled glide, ⟨pejjor⟩, which explains its long first syllable in verse; the Italian /ddʒ/ continues that sound.[7]

The Latin comparative goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ped-yōs (“to the ground, downward”), from a root meaning “to fall”, and the OLD compares pessum (“to the bottom”).[2][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is peçor in the northern poet Uguccione da Lodi, early in the 13th century;[2][9] Zingarelli dates peggiore to about 1261.[2][9] It meant inferior in quality or worth, less useful, or morally worse.[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante places among the traitors col peggiore spirto di Romagna, “with the worst spirit of Romagna”, and Boccaccio says of Ser Ciappelletto that he was il piggiore uomo forse che mai nascesse, “perhaps the worst man ever born”.[3][10] With the article the word served as the superlative, as it still does.[6][4] Petrarch used it as a noun, “the worse”: e veggio 'l meglio, et al peggior m'appiglio, “I see the better and cling to the worse”, a line later echoed by Foscolo.[11][12][13]

Derivatives date from the same period: peggiorare “to make worse” in Bono Giamboni before 1292 and “to grow worse” in the Novellino, from Late Latin peiorare, and the grammar term peggiorativo in the first Crusca dictionary of 1612.[2][5]

Timeline

  • Early 13th century – Uguccione da Lodi writes peçor.[2]
  • c. 1261 – First date given by Zingarelli.[9]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses peggiorare.[2]
  • Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses peggioramento.[2]
  • 1612 – Peggiorativo appears in the Crusca dictionary.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. worse: the comparative of cattivo, morally worse: Non è peggiore di tanti altri.[6][4][12]
  2. With the definite article, the worst: Ha scelto la strada peggiore.[6][4][9]
  3. Less capable or skilled: il peggior cuoco del quartiere.[6][4]
  4. Inferior in quality or value: Questo tessuto è peggiore dell'altro.[6][4][11]
  5. Less favourable, convenient or suitable: Mi hai chiamato nel momento peggiore.[6][4][9]
  6. In worse health or spirits: Oggi ha una cera peggiore.[6][4]

Noun

  1. The worst person, someone inferior to the others: È il peggiore della squadra.[6][4][12]
  2. (archaic) The worse thing or course, as in Petrarch.[11][9][12]

Word family

  • peggiorare
  • peggioramento
  • peggiorativo

Usage notes

Peggiore is more common than the regular comparative più cattivo; the adverb is peggio, the comparative of male, which is often used as an adjective too.[12] Nella peggiore delle ipotesi means “at worst”.[9][12] The opposite is migliore.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  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, 938
  4. ^ 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
  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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  11. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ a b c d e f Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli