Etymologically
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pessimo

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɛs.si.mo/[1]

Forms

pessimo (feminine pessima, masculine plural pessimi, feminine plural pessime)[1] Old and dialect forms include pèsimo, pèsscimo and pèximo.[2]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin pessimus (“worst, very bad”), the superlative used with malus (“bad”) beside the comparative peior (“worse”).[3][4][5][6] In Italian it serves as the superlative of cattivo, beside the regular cattivissimo, as peggiore serves as its comparative.[7][8] The Latin word was also inherited in Old French and Old Occitan as Old French pesme and Old Occitan pesme;[9][10] Spanish pésimo is a learned borrowing like the Italian.[4]

Nocentini traces the Latin superlative to a form *pedsomos, from a root Proto-Indo-European *ped- (“to fall”) that also underlies peius (“worse”).[4] The verb itself is lost in Latin, but its supine pessum survives in phrases meaning “to go to ruin” and “to ruin”.[4][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Bono Giamboni's Vizi e virtudi (before 1292), where avarice is called pessimo Vizio, “the worst vice”;[3][2] Zingarelli dates the word to about 1261.[11] The early uses are moral: utterly wicked, sinful.[2]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio speaks of a pessimo uomo who was taken for a saint after his death, and Dante calls Geryon la fiera pessima, “the vilest beast”.[12] From moral wickedness the word spread to anything of very poor quality, very unpleasant or very unfavourable: food, weather, a deal, a mood.[5][8][13]

Because the Latin form is already a superlative, più pessimo “more worst” is rare and literary.[11] The derivatives pessimismo and pessimista did not come from the adjective directly: they reached Italian through French pessimisme (1759) and pessimiste (1789), and are recorded in Italian from 1818 (pessimista) and the first half of the 19th century (pessimismo).[3][4]

Timeline

  • c. 1261 – First record according to Zingarelli.[11]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses pessimo of avarice.[3]
  • 1818 – Pessimista is recorded in a Milanese periodical.[3][4]
  • 1826 – Nocentini's date for pessimismo.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. very bad, the worst, morally wicked or untrustworthy: Quel ragazzo frequenta pessime compagnie.[5][8][13]
  2. Very bad at one's job or role, incompetent: È un pessimo cuoco ma un ottimo amico.[8][13][14]
  3. Of very poor quality, worthless: una birra pessima; of a language, badly spoken.[5][8]
  4. Very unpleasant to the taste or smell, disgusting.[5][8]
  5. Working very badly: Ho una pessima memoria per i nomi.[5][8]
  6. Very unfavourable, dreadful: essere di pessimo umore, to be in a foul mood; of weather, very bad.[5][8][11]

Word family

  • pessimamente
  • pessimismo
  • pessimista
  • pessimistico

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2876
  11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  13. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli