personalità

Forms

personalità f^[1] Older forms were Old Italian personalitade and Old Italian personalitate.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin persōnālitās (“personality”), formed from persōnālis (“personal”), from Latin persōna (“mask; character, person”).^[3][4][5][1] Sabatini–Coletti holds that the senses “individual character” and “personality in psychology” came through French personnalité, which DELI dates in the sense “characteristic of a person” to 1762.^[6][3]

The Latin word was a term of the theatre, the mask.^[4][3] Nocentini and DELI derive it from Etruscan ⟨φersu⟩, “masked figure”, found in tomb inscriptions, perhaps through a derived form ending in ⟨-na⟩.^[4][1] The Etruscan word is held to be an adaptation of Ancient Greek πρόσωπον (prósōpon, “face; mask”).^[4][3][1] The OLD marks the Etruscan source as only probable, and the Romans' own derivation from persōnāre (“to sound through”) is unlikely, since the vowel lengths do not match.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

F. da Buti used it before 1406 in the sense “the condition of being a person”, in an isolated record: it next appears in Gioberti in 1843.^[3][5][2]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense, the condition of being a person in law, appears in Romagnosi before 1835.^[3] In 1843 Gioberti defined personalità as consciousness joined with self-love, with the French le moi as his gloss.^[3][8]

At the end of the 19th century the word took on two of its main modern senses: an important person in public life (1883), and the set of traits that make up an individual's temperament, as in personalità spiccata (about 1900).^[3] Psychology later gave it its technical sense, and phrases such as doppia personalità, sdoppiamento della personalità and culto della personalità, the formula of the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956.^[5][6][9]

Timeline

• Before 1406 – F. da Buti uses the word.^[3][5]
• Before 1835 – Romagnosi uses it for legal personality.^[3]
• 1843 – Gioberti uses it again in philosophy.^[3][8]
• 1883 – It is recorded for a person of standing.^[3]
• About 1900 – Personalità spiccata “a strong character” is recorded.^[3]
• 1956 – Culto della personalità is coined at the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party.^[6][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (uncommon) The quality of being personale, peculiar to one individual: la personalità di un parere.^[5][10][9]
2. character, temperament; in absolute use, a strong and well-defined character: Quel ragazzo ha molta personalità.^[5][11][10]
3. (psychology) Personality: the integrated set of psychological traits and ways of behaving that mark out an individual: disturbi della personalità.^[5][6][9][1]
4. (law) Legal personality: the condition of being a subject of rights and duties: personalità giuridica.^{[5][10][9][1]}
5. A person of standing or influence in some field, a celebrity: una personalità del mondo del teatro.^{[5][10][6][1]}
6. (philosophy) The individuality of a single consciousness, existing apart from every other.^[5][6]

Related words

• personale
• persona
• personaggio
• French personnalité

Usage notes

The noun is invariable: le personalità.^[5][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 113
9. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
10. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ 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