pingere

Forms

pingere (first-person singular present pìngo, first-person singular past historic pìnsi, past participle pìnto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old Tuscan form is Old Italian pignere, used by Sacchetti.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

DELI and Zingarelli call it a learned word, borrowed from Latin pĭngere (“to paint, embroider”).^[5][6] Wiktionary and Nocentini treat it as the continuation of the Latin verb, and Nocentini gives French peindre and Occitan penher as its Romance counterparts.^[1][7] REW adds Vegliote piandro and Friulian pendzi.^[8] The usual word is dipingere.^[5]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *pi-n-ḱ- (“to paint, adorn”) of the root that Wiktionary gives as *peyḱ- (“to mark, paint”).^[9][1] Its cognates include Ancient Greek ποικίλος (poikílos, “many-coloured”) and Lithuanian piẽšti (“to draw”).^[9][7][1] The past participle pictus is the source of pittura and pittore.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250: com’om che tene mente / in altra parte e pinge / la simile pintura (“like a man who keeps an image in mind elsewhere and paints its likeness”).^[5][10] The sense was “to paint”.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

Dante writes Come pintor che con essempio pinga (“like a painter who paints from a model”).^[10][11] Petrarch uses the verb for describing in verse.^[11] From Firenzuola in the 16th century it also meant “to embroider”, as in Foscolo's sì pingea con l’ago (“so she painted with the needle”).^[11][2]

In later poetry the verb meant to colour (Parini's Pinge ingenuo rossor tua casta gota, “an innocent blush colours your chaste cheek”), to describe (Alfieri), and to picture in the mind (Leopardi's quale il mio pensier ti pinge).^[12][13] The participle pinto also meant “many-coloured”, as in Tasso's pinti augelli.^[13] Today the verb is archaic or literary.^[11][12][1]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses pingere “to paint”.^[5][11]
• 16th century – Firenzuola uses it for “to embroider”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To paint, depict.^[11][12][4]
2. (literary) To colour: Un rossore le pinse il viso.^[11][12][13]
3. (literary) To embroider.^[11][2]
4. (figurative, literary) To describe vividly, in words or verse.^[11][4][13]
5. (figurative, literary) To picture in the mind, imagine; of a sound or gesture, to express.^[11][12][13]

Word family

• pinto
• pingitore
• ripingere

Related words

• dipingere
• pittura
• pittore
• pigmento
• Latin pingo

Usage notes

A second, literary pingere means “to push” (also reflexive pingersi, “to press on”): it is spingere with the s- dropped, recorded before 1313, as in Boccaccio's quello, dall’altre aiutata, pinse in terra (“with the others' help she pushed it to the ground”).^[11][13][4] DEI takes that verb from Latin impingere and finds it alive in rustic Pisan.^[2] Both verbs are conjugated alike, with past participle pinto.^[13][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2927
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c 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, 491
11. ^ 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
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c d e f g Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)