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picchiare

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Italian has two verbs spelled picchiare: the old verb “to beat, knock”, and the aviation verb “to dive”, an adaptation of French piquer.[1][2][3] DELI, GRADIT and Nocentini number them in this order.[1][2][3]

picchiare1 beat, knock

Pronunciation

  • /pikˈkja.re/[4]

Forms

picchiare (first-person singular present pìcchio, first-person singular past historic picchiài, past participle picchiàto, auxiliary avére)[4]

Etymology

The verb meaning “to beat” is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pic(c)ulāre (“to tap repeatedly”), according to Nocentini, Devoto–Oli and Devoto: a diminutive or iterative of *pīccāre (“to strike with a point”).[3][5][6] In Nocentini's view the diminutive took over the main sense “to strike” from its base, as diminutives often do, and new diminutives such as picchiettare were then formed in its place.[3] The base survives in piccare and in French piquer, Occitan picar, Spanish picar and Portuguese picar; its origin is unknown.[7][3]

DELI sees the verb as imitative of the sound of a blow, like picca, rather than as a derivative of picchio (“woodpecker”), as DEI and Prati proposed with an allusion to the bird's pecking;[1][8][9] Wiktionary, GRADIT, Sabatini–Coletti and Treccani also call it imitative.[4][2][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the verb to before 1292, and DEI finds it in Francesco da Barberino in the 14th century.[12][8] DELI's first record is in Boccaccio's Decameron (1353), “to strike or beat repeatedly”, where visitors knock at a door: “Picchiando l'uscio, a lei che già rispondeva, dissero …”, knocking at the door, they said to her, who was already answering.[1][9]

Semantic evolution

Knocking at doors gave picchiata, a knock (Bernardino of Siena, 1427), picchio, a knock (Pulci, 1483), and picchiotto, a door knocker (1846).[1] The sense “to beat a person, thrash” is recorded in the third Crusca dictionary (1681).[1] Modern Italian also says that the sun picchia, beats down, and of a petrol engine that it picchia in testa, knocks.[2][12][11]

The adjective picchiatello, “a bit crazy”, was coined in 1936–1937 by Tullo Gramantieri, the translator of the film Mr Deeds Goes to Town, for the American pixilated; it rests on the older essere picchiato, to have taken a knock on the head.[1] Picchiatore, one who beats, became the name of a hard-hitting boxer in 1958.[1]

Timeline

  • Before 1292 – Date given by Zingarelli.[12]
  • 1353 – Boccaccio uses picchiare for knocking at a door.[1]
  • 1427 – Picchiata “knock” is recorded in Bernardino of Siena.[1]
  • 1483 – Pulci uses picchio for a knock.[1]
  • 1681 – The third Crusca dictionary records “to thrash”.[1]
  • 1846 – Picchiotto “door knocker” is recorded.[1]
  • 1936–1937 – Tullo Gramantieri coins picchiatello.[1]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To beat, hit, thrash someone: Due ragazzi hanno picchiato un passante.[2][5][10]
  2. To strike, bang something or a part of the body on something: Ha picchiato il pugno sul banco.[2][5][12]
  3. To bump accidentally: Ho picchiato il ginocchio contro la sedia.[2][5][11]
  4. (intransitive) To knock, beat: Qualcuno picchia alla finestra; of rain, to beat down; of the sun, to be scorching.[2][12][10]
  5. (figurative) To insist, keep on at something.[2][12][13]
  6. (mechanics) picchiare in testa, of an engine, to knock.[12][11][13]
  7. (reciprocal, picchiarsi) To come to blows, fight.[10][12][13]

Word family

  • picchiato
  • picchiatore
  • picchiatello
  • picchiettare
  • picchiettio
  • picchiettatura
  • picchierellare
  • picchiotto
  • ripicchiare

picchiare2 dive

Pronunciation

  • /pikˈkja.re/[4]

Forms

picchiare (first-person singular present pìcchio; auxiliary avére; compound tenses not in use)[11]

Etymology

The aviation verb is borrowed from French piquer, adapted to the form of the existing Italian verb.[1][3][2][8] The French verb is recorded from 1866 for any sudden movement downward, vertical or nearly so, and in the French dictionaries for aircraft only from 1937; but Panzini's dictionary already records French vol piqué in 1918, explained as the dart-like flight of planes coming down steeply at high speed.[1] Nocentini describes the sense as coming down “point first”, applied to flight during the First World War.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the 1918 edition of Alfredo Panzini's Dizionario moderno, for an aircraft lowering its nose and changing attitude and course.[1][2]

Semantic evolution

Marinetti defined it as putting the machine in a position of descent, and the noun picchiata, a dive, is recorded in his writing in 1929.[9][1] By comparison Corrado Alvaro used it for a ship pitching forward at the bow.[9] Its opposite is cabrare, to climb nose up.[12]

Timeline

  • 1866 – French piquer is recorded for a sudden downward movement.[1]
  • 1918 – Panzini's dictionary records picchiare and vol piqué.[1]
  • 1929 – Marinetti uses picchiata “dive”.[1]
  • 1937 – The aviation sense of piquer enters the French dictionaries.[1]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (aviation) Of an aircraft, to dive, come down steeply nose first: Il bombardiere picchiò sull'obiettivo.[2][5][10]
  2. (by extension) Of a ship, to pitch forward at the bow.[9]

Word family

  • picchiata
  • picca
  • piccare
  • picchio
  • French piquer

Usage notes

DEI also lists dialect verbs picchiare “to chirp” and, in the Marche, “to delay”, the latter from Latin plicare.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2900
  9. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  10. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  11. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli