pianare

Forms

pianare (first-person singular present piàno, first-person singular past historic pianài, past participle pianàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An older form is Old Italian planare.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin plānāre (“to make level”), a verb formed in Late Latin from plānus (“flat, level”), the source of piano.^{[3][4][5][6][1][2]} Battisti and Alessio cite the Latin verb from Corippus and Gregory of Tours, and Tommaseo also notes it in Corippus.^[7][8] The Devoto–Oli and Treccani dictionaries treat the Italian verb instead as formed in Italian from the adjective.^[9][10]

The verb survives in Italy, France and Occitania, with traces in the Iberian Peninsula.^[7] Meyer-Lübke lists Romansh planer, French planer, Old Occitan planar and the derivative Galician achandar (“to level”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Zingarelli date the first record before 1320.^[3][4] Battisti and Alessio name Pier de' Crescenzi, whose treatise on farming the GDLI and Tommaseo quote in its Italian translation: si dee arare e con l'erpice e con le marre il luogo per tutto pianare (“the place must be ploughed and levelled all over with the harrow and the hoes”).^[7][2][8]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is levelling the ground, as in the Italian Palladius, where the threshing floor is levelled with a round stone or a piece of wood, and in Machiavelli's description of the harrow.^[2][8] Technical senses followed: a Sienese statute of the wool guild requires carders to pianare il panno, and Manzini's 17th-century treatise on optics speaks of levelling glass plates for lenses.^[8] Modern dictionaries keep the senses of levelling a field, smoothing a metal sheet or stone, and preparing a woollen cloth for shearing.^[3]

The verb is now uncommon, and spianare and appianare are the usual words.^[9][5][10]

Timeline

• Before 1320 – First record of pianare.^[3][4]
• 14th century – Pier de' Crescenzi's treatise uses the verb for levelling a field.^[7][2]
• 1561 – Pianatoio is recorded (Citolini).^[7]
• 1804 – Pianatore and pianatura are recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, uncommon) To level ground, make it flat: pianare l'orto prima della semina.^[3][5][9]
2. (transitive, technical) To smooth or plane a metal sheet, a stone or similar surface.^[3][6]
3. (transitive, textiles) To prepare a woollen cloth for shearing.^[3][2]

Word family

• ripianare
• pianatoio
• pianatore
• pianatura

Related words

• piano
• spianare
• appianare
• Latin planus

Usage notes

The GDLI separates two further verbs of this spelling.^[2] One, dialectal, means “to plane wood” and is formed from piana, a kind of plane; it is also used for smoothing candles and for preparing cloth.^[2] The other, intransitive, means “to make plans” and is formed from piano “plan”; the GDLI's only quotation is from Fenoglio.^[2] Battisti and Alessio list a southern dialect verb pianare “to climb”, with Calabrian nchianari, formed from piano “level ground”.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 267
3. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ a b c d e f g Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2892
8. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter