pianto

Forms

pianto m (plural pianti)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian piando.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin planctus (“a beating of the breast; lament”), the action noun of plangō (“to strike, beat the breast; lament”).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} The Late Latin word, used by Tacitus for a sign of grief, took the place of the classical flētus (“weeping”).^[7][2][8] The Latin noun first meant the action of striking noisily.^[9]

The word is panromance except in Romanian: Sardinian prantu, Romansh plaunt, Old French plaint, Old Occitan planh, Catalan plant and Spanish llanto.^[10][7] The verb goes back through Proto-Italic to Proto-Indo-European *plh₂-n-g- (“to hit”).^[11]

The same form is also the past participle of piangere, from the same Latin verb.^[5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's oldest record, in Rinaldo d'Aquino, has the sense “grief, sorrow, mourning”; the shedding of tears is recorded before 1250 in Giacomo da Lentini.^[3] Giacomo writes that he casts at his lady his sighs and tears: li miei sospiri e pianti.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Dante's Hell is full of it: Quivi sospiri, pianti e alti guai / Risonavan per l'aer senza stelle (“Here sighs, laments and loud wails resounded through the starless air”).^[8] In the 14th century it also meant mourning, and in the 16th Annibal Caro used it for a funeral song.^[7] The pianto was also a genre of medieval Italian and French poetry written on a painful event.^[5][12]

Later senses are the sap that flows from a cut root or stem (1892) and, in colloquial use, anything that causes grief or annoyance, such as a bad film or a tiresome person (1958).^[3][13] Pianto greco, an endless, tiresome lament, may allude to the funeral songs of ancient Greece.^[14][12]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Rinaldo d'Aquino uses pianto for grief.^[3]
• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses it for weeping.^[3]
• 14th century – The sense “mourning” appears.^[7]
• 16th century – Annibal Caro uses it for a funeral song.^[7]
• 1892 – The botanical sense “flow of sap” is recorded.^[3]
• 1958 – The sense “something that causes grief or annoyance” is recorded.^[3][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. weeping, crying: shedding tears, with sobs and broken breathing, from pain, grief or anger: Il bambino scoppiò in un pianto disperato.^[5][15][13]
2. Weeping from joy or emotion.^[5]
3. The tears themselves.^[5][13][14]
4. Deep grief, sorrow, mourning.^[5][15][13]
5. Something that causes grief or suffering.^[5][15]
6. (colloquial) Something badly made or disappointing, or a tiresome person: Quella partita è stata un pianto.^[5][15][13]
7. (uncommon) A funeral lament.^[5][15]
8. (literature) A medieval Italian or French poem written on a painful event.^[5]
9. (figurative) The plaintive cry of an animal, the mournful sound of an instrument, or a sound of nature like a lament.^[5][13]
10. (botany) The flow of sap from a cut in the root or stem of a plant.^[5][13][14]

Word family

• pianterello

Related words

• piangere
• compianto
• rimpianto
• Latin planctus

Usage notes

Set phrases include avere il pianto in gola and avere il pianto nel cuore, pianto greco (an endless, tiresome lament) and muro del pianto (the Western Wall in Jerusalem).^[5][15][6]

Pianto as the past participle of piangere also means “mourned, regretted after death”, as in Carducci's re per tant'anni bestemmiato e pianto (“a king cursed and mourned for so many years”).^[5][2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 302
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2895
8. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier