Etymologically
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piano

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piano1 flat; slowly; floor

Pronunciation

Forms

piano (feminine piana, masculine plural piani, feminine plural piane, superlative pianissimo)[1] As a noun “floor; plane; plain” it has the plural piani, in Old Italian also le pianora.[1][2][3]

Etymology

The word meaning “flat; slowly; floor” is inherited from Latin plānus (“flat, level; easy, clear”), with the noun plānum (“level ground, plain”), its neuter used as a noun.[4][5][6][1] The adjective is found across the Romance languages except Romanian: French plain, Occitan pla, Catalan pla, Spanish llano and Portuguese chão.[5][7][8] Wiktionary compares Sicilian chianu.[1]

De Vaan derives the Latin word from Proto-Italic *plāno-, Proto-Indo-European *pl(e)h₂-nó- (“flattened”), and compares Lithuanian plónas (“thin”) and Latvian plāns (“flat, thin”).[9] Nocentini adds that another form of the root lies behind German Flur and English floor.[5]

The noun for the instrument is a clipping of pianoforte, named because it could play both soft and loud, and the short form probably reached Italian through French, where it is recorded from 1798.[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's earliest record is the noun “stretch of plain” in a Tuscan document on an exchange of land from the end of the 12th century.[4][6] The adjective “flat, level” is first in King Enzo, before 1272: Vanne in Puglia piana “go to flat Apulia”.[4][10]

Semantic evolution

Already Latin used the adjective for what is easy and clear, and these senses are in Italian by Bono Giamboni (before 1292).[7][4] The adverb “slowly” is in Dante and “in a low voice” in Boccaccio (1353); as a musical direction for playing softly piano is recorded in 1584, and it passed into German in 1619, English in 1638 and French in 1732.[4][11]

The noun took on the senses of a flat surface (1556), of each storey of a building (Vasari, before 1574) and, with Galileo (1638), of the plane of geometry.[4] The storey sense reached English in 1860.[11] From the geometrical plane came the figurative “level” (sullo stesso piano).[6]

The instrument was announced in 1711 as a harpsichord col piano e forte, the invention of Bartolomeo Cristofori;[4][5] pianoforte is recorded from 1771 and the short piano from 1831.[4][5]

Timeline

  • End of the 12th century – The noun “plain” is recorded in a Tuscan document.[4]
  • Before 1272 – King Enzo uses the adjective “flat”.[4]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for “easy, clear”.[4]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses the adverb “slowly”.[4]
  • 1353 – Boccaccio uses it for “in a low voice”.[4]
  • Before 1574 – Vasari uses piano for a storey of a building.[4]
  • 1584 – Piano is used as a musical direction.[11]
  • 1638 – Galileo uses piano for the plane of geometry.[4]
  • 1638 – The musical term is recorded in English.[11]
  • 1831 – Piano is used for the pianoforte.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. flat, level, without rises or hollows: una strada piana; flat, neither concave nor convex: un piatto piano.[2][6][1]
  2. (geometry) Lying in a plane: geometria piana.[2]
  3. (figurative) Easy, smooth; clear, plain: uno stile piano.[2][1]
  4. (linguistics) Stressed on the second-to-last syllable.[2][1]
  5. (athletics) Of a race run without hurdles.[2]

Adverb

  1. slowly, gently, with care: Guida piano![1][6]
  2. Softly, in a low voice, (music) piano.[1][11]

Noun

  1. A flat surface forming the top of a piece of furniture; a shelf: il piano della scrivania.[6][2]
  2. Flat land, a plain.[6]
  3. (geometry) A plane.[6][1]
  4. A storey of a building: Abitiamo al terzo piano.[6][1]
  5. (figurative) Level, degree of importance; point of view: sul piano economico.[6]
  6. A piano, short for pianoforte.[6][1]

Word family

  • piana
  • pianura
  • pianoro
  • pianerottolo
  • pianella
  • pianeggiare
  • pianterreno
  • pianoterra
  • altopiano
  • appianare
  • spianare
  • ripiano
  • pianoforte
  • pianista
  • pianino

piano2 plan

Pronunciation

Forms

piano m (plural piani)[1]

Etymology

The word meaning “plan” is borrowed from French plan (“drawing, plan; project”), recorded in French from 1569 for a drawing and, from 1600 for a worked-out project.[4][5][6] The French noun was first ⟨plant⟩, “planting, a thing planted”, from planter (“to plant, to found”), and was reshaped under the influence of plan (“flat”), which comes from the same Latin adjective as homograph 1; the confusion arose in the language of architecture.[4][5]

The derivatives pianificare and pianificazione are calques of the Russian terms of Soviet five-year planning, and appear in the 1930s.[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giovanni Battista Lauri in 1685, in the sense “programme, project, purpose”.[4][6][5] The sense “technical drawing of a building or machine” follows in Giovanni Pietro Bergantini in 1758.[4]

Semantic evolution

DEI records the word in military language and in the phrase piano di guerra “plan of war” (1851).[3] In the 20th century it became a word of economic planning (piano quinquennale “five-year plan”), and pianificare is first recorded in 1937, in “planned terrorism” in L'Unità.[4][5] In everyday use it now means any scheme or intention (che piani hai per l'estate?).[6]

Timeline

  • 1569 – French plan is recorded for a drawing.[4]
  • 1685 – Giovanni Battista Lauri uses piano for a programme or project.[4]
  • 1758 – Bergantini uses it for a technical drawing.[4]
  • 1937 – Pianificare is first recorded.[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A technical drawing of a building, machine or other structure, used as a guide in making it.[6]
  2. A plan, a programme of action: un piano di evacuazione.[6][1]
  3. An idea or scheme for the future: Hai già dei piani per domani?[6][1]

Word family

  • pianificare
  • pianificazione
  • pianificatore

Usage notes

A minor homograph piano “of Pope Pius” is used in abito piano, the cassock that Pius IX made obligatory, and in the papal Ordine piano.[10][6] Common phrases of piano “flat; slowly” include piano piano “very slowly”, andarci piano “to go easy” and primo piano “foreground; close-up”.[1][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  3. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2894
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 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 d e f g h i j k l Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2893
  8. ^ 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. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 277
  11. ^ a b c d e Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it