pestare

Forms

pestare (first-person singular present pésto, first-person singular past historic pestài, past participle pestàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old form is Old Italian pistare, used from the 14th to the 17th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin pistāre (“to pound”), recorded in Vegetius and Apuleius, an intensive formed on the past participle of Latin pīnsō (“to pound, crush”).^{[4][5][6][2][1]} The same verb is Sardinian pistare and Old Occitan pestar;^[7][5] Nocentini takes Spanish pistar as a loan from Italian.^[7][5]

The Latin verb is a nasal present from Proto-Italic *pinsō, from Proto-Indo-European *peys- (“to crush”), with cognates in Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Slavic and Greek, among them Ancient Greek πτίσσω (ptíssō, “to winnow, crush”).^[8][1][9] The verb calpestare “to trample” comes from it crossed with calcō (“to tread”).^[7]

DELI takes pesto as the shortened past participle and pesta as its feminine.^[4] Merlo instead held only the adjective to be the short participle, and the nouns to be deverbal.^[4] The name of the sauce is a Genoese word.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the Tuscan Libro di Sydrac, of the second half of the 13th century, in the sense of crushing something into pieces or powder by repeated blows.^[4] Jacopone (before 1306) uses it for “to beat someone up”, and Dante (before 1321) for pressing down with the foot.^[4]

Semantic evolution

All three senses of Old Italian, crushing, beating and treading, are still current.^[4][6] Boccaccio has the spice-seller who has cumin pounded in his shop.^[10] Tools and actions followed: pestata (Lorenzo de' Medici, before 1492), pestatura (Biringuccio, before 1537), and pestaggio, a violent beating, only in 1948.^[4] REW derives pistone from the same verb, the source of French piston.^[7]

Fixed phrases include pestare i piedi, to stamp one's feet, pestare i piedi or i calli a qualcuno, to tread on someone's toes, and pestare l'acqua nel mortaio, to labour in vain.^[6][11][12] Jokingly it also means to play a piano heavily.^[6][13]

Timeline

• Second half of the 13th century – The Libro di Sydrac uses pestare for crushing to powder.^[4]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone uses it for “to beat”.^[4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for treading with the foot.^[4]
• Before 1492 – Lorenzo de' Medici uses pestata.^[4]
• Before 1537 – V. Biringuccio uses pestatura.^[4]
• 1948 – Pestaggio “violent beating” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pound, crush, grind with a pestle or other heavy tool: pestare l'aglio nel mortaio.^[6][11][1]
2. To beat up, hit hard and repeatedly: lo pestarono fuori dal locale.^[6][11][1]
3. (jocular) To bang on a keyboard, play badly.^[6][13]
4. To tread on, trample: pestare una formica; to press grapes.^[6][14][1]

Word family

• pesta
• pestaggio
• pestata
• pestatura
• pesticciare
• pesto
• pestone
• soppestare
• pestatoio
• pestatore

Related words

• calpestare
• pestello
• pigiare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2877
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse