petire

Forms

petire^[1] Old Italian forms include petìo and petia (third person singular past and imperfect), petiero and the participle petuto.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin petō (“to make for; to seek; to ask”), moved from the third to the fourth conjugation.^[2][1][3] The more Latin petere is a variant of the same word.^[4][5] The TLIO finds the ⟨-ire⟩ type mainly in central and southern texts, and it lives on in the dialects between southern Lazio and western Abruzzo and in Sardinia.^[2]

The Latin verb survives in Sardinian pedire, Spanish pedir, Portuguese pedir and Romanian peți (“to woo a girl”), in Neapolitan pezzire (in old texts) and in central dialects such as that of Velletri.^[6][5] In Sardinian the verb means to ask in order to get something, against a verb meaning to ask in order to know.^[7] De Vaan connects the Latin verb with Ancient Greek πέτομαι (pétomai, “to fly”), explaining the sense through “fly up towards”, then “make for, try to get”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Ritmo di sant'Alessio, from the Marche in the late 12th century, in the sense “to ask for”: two people pray to God and ask that he hear them.^[2] The Ritmo cassinese of the early 13th century has quantumqu'a Deu petite, “whatever you ask of God”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Besides asking for something, Old Italian used the verb for desiring a thing, for looking for it, and with a place, for heading towards it, all senses of the Latin verb.^[2][8] A Roman chronicle of 1252–58 says the Romans petiero aiuto, “asked for help”, from the Latins.^[2] Tommaseo cites it from the Tuscan translation of Guido delle Colonne, questa quantitate che petite, “this sum that you ask for”.^[3] The word was out of use by Tommaseo's time.^[3]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Ritmo di sant'Alessio (Marche) uses petia.^[2]
• Early 13th century – The Ritmo cassinese uses petite.^[2]
• 1252–1258 – A Roman text uses petiero “they asked”.^[2]
• c. 1362 – Buccio di Ranallo of L'Aquila uses the verb.^[2]
• 1373 – A Sicilian text uses it.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic) To ask for, request.^[1][3][2]
2. (archaic) To desire, seek, look for.^[2]
3. (archaic) To head towards a place.^[2]

Related words

• petere
• petizione
• pezzente
• Latin petō

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 m n o Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET, p. 380
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill