petto

Forms

petto m (plural petti, diminutive pettino, augmentative pettóne, pejorative pettàccio, derogatory pettùccio)^[1] The old plural was feminine, le pèttora.^[2][3] Old and dialect forms include pecto, peito and peto.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pectus (“breast, chest”).^[5][6][7][1] The word is panromance: Old French piz, Old Occitan peitz, Catalan pit, Spanish pecho, Portuguese peito, Sardinian pettus and Romanian piept.^[6][8][1] The sense “udder, breasts” in parts of France and northern Italy has been explained as a calque of Gaulish *bronno-, which meant belly, breast and udder.^[8][2]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *pektos-; de Vaan finds a likely cognate in Old Irish ucht (“breast”), if its vowel goes back to an older ⟨e⟩, and rejects the old links with Tocharian and Sanskrit.^[9][1] Nocentini, DEI and Devoto connect it with pectō (“to comb”), so that the breast would be the hairy part of the body.^[6][2][10] The Latin cluster ⟨-ct-⟩ became ⟨-tt-⟩, as in latte and notte.^[1][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250, with the sense “front of the chest”: Co madonna sta lo core, / che de lo meo petto è fore, “my heart dwells with my lady, for it has left my breast”.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

Within a century the word covered the organs of the chest, especially the lungs (Bono Giamboni, before 1292), the breast of an animal (Giamboni), a woman's breast (1310) and, in Dino Compagni (1310–1312), the front of anything.^[5] The breast meat of fowl is in a 14th-century cookery treatise: Tolli petti di polli, “take chicken breasts”.^[11][5] The part of a garment over the chest is recorded from 1804.^[5]

From the 14th century petto was also the seat of feelings, and, from the 16th courage.^[2] Avere in petto, to keep a decision to oneself, is in Paolo Segneri in the 17th century, and the adverbial in petto passed unchanged into English (1674) and French (1745).^[2] It is also used in German and Dutch.^[1] In music the do di petto is the tenor's high C, sung in chest voice.^[12][13] Common phrases are prendere di petto (to tackle head-on) and battersi il petto (to beat one's breast in remorse).^[12][3]

Spanish peto (“breastplate”) is borrowed from Italian, and so is the French word for a parapet, through parapetto.^[8][2] The robin, pettirosso, is named for its red breast; a man called Petirosso is recorded at Venice in 1312.^[5]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses petto.^[5]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for the lungs and for an animal's breast.^[5]
• 1310 – The sense “woman's breast” is recorded.^[5]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses pettoruto, puffed-out.^[5]
• 1674 – English borrows the phrase in petto.^[2]
• 1745 – French borrows in petto.^[2]
• 1804 – Petto names the part of a garment over the chest.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The chest, the front of the body between neck and abdomen: Il proiettile lo ha colpito in pieno petto.^[7][14][15]
2. The organs inside the chest, especially heart and lungs: malato di petto, consumptive.^[7][14][12]
3. A woman's breast or breasts, the bosom: Teneva il neonato stretto al petto.^[7][14][15]
4. The breast of an animal; as food, breast meat of fowl and the brisket of beef: petto di pollo.^[7][15][3]
5. The front part of a garment over the chest; each front panel of a jacket: una giacca a un petto.^[7][15]
6. (figurative) The heart, as the seat of feelings; courage: tenere in petto, to keep to oneself.^[7][15][12]
7. (historical) The breastplate of a suit of armour.^[7][15]

Word family

• pettirosso
• pettorale
• pettoruto
• pettorina
• pettino
• pettiera
• impettito
• impettirsi
• doppiopetto
• parapetto
• rimpetto
• dirimpetto
• dirimpettaio

Related words

• espettorare
• pettine
• Latin pectus

Usage notes

In GRADIT petto is also listed as a variant of peto, a fart.^[7][4] In petto is used of a cardinal named by the pope but not yet announced;^[1][2] English also has the phrase.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2885
3. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ 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. 13, 215
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse