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ponte

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Pronunciation

Forms

ponte m (plural ponti)[1] Old Italian also had ponto and punte.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pōns (“bridge”), from the accusative “pontem”.[4][5][6][1] The same word is French pont, Occitan pont, Catalan pont, Spanish puente, Portuguese ponte and Romanian punte, and also Sardinian ponte, Romansh punt, Friulian puint and Dalmatian puant.[5][7][8] The DÉRom reconstructs a masculine Proto-Romance */ˈpɔnt-e/, kept masculine in Sardinian; a feminine gender arose later in outlying areas, in Romanian, Lombard, Romansh, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese.[9][7]

Latin pōns goes back to Proto-Italic *pont- and Proto-Indo-European *pónth₁s (“road”), the source of Sanskrit पथ् (pánthā-, “road, path”), Ancient Greek πόντος (póntos, “sea”), Ancient Greek πάτος (pátos, “path”), Armenian հուն (hown, “ford”) and Old Church Slavonic пѫть (pǫtĭ, “road”).[10][5] The sense developed from “way” to “bridge” in Latin;[10][5][11] Nocentini explains it by Rome's position on the Tiber, where the bridge was the necessary way across, as the sea was the ordinary way for the Greeks.[10][5][11] The same root is in pontefice, from Latin pontifex, most likely “bridge-maker”.[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Sienese text of Mattasalà di Spinello (1233–1243); DELI dates the word to a Venetian document of 1253.[2][4][6] The sense is a structure that connects two places separated by water or a gap.[2][4] In the Purgatorio Dante writes that the bones of a dead king would still lie “in co del ponte presso a Benevento” (“at the head of the bridge near Benevento”).[3]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian ponte levatoio was the drawbridge, and ponte also meant builders' scaffolding (Sacchetti, before 1400) and a landing stage; figuratively it was the passage from life to death and Christ or the Virgin as the bridge between man and God.[2][4] The deck of a ship is recorded in 1561 (Citolini).[4] Ponticello (Dante, Medieval Latin ponticellus in Rome in the 12th century) came to mean the bridge of a violin in 1612;[4] pontile “jetty” is from Venetian, and pontiere (1867) and pontone in the sense “pontoon” follow French pontier and ponton;[4] ponte galleggiante and ponte sospeso may be calques of French pont flottant and pont suspendu (1765).[4]

Technical senses multiplied in the 20th century: the electrical bridge (ponte a filo, 1904), the dental bridge (1958, but advertised by a Venetian dentist in 1913), the drive axle of a vehicle and the arched position of a wrestler or gymnast (both 1958).[4] Ponte aereo “airlift” dates from 1948.[12] The ponte, a working day between two holidays taken off to make a long weekend, is in Migliorini's appendix of 1963.[4] The card game bridge was called ponte by an inexact translation of English bridge.[12][13] The ponte di Varolio in the brain is named after the anatomist Costanzo Varolio (1543–1575).[4]

Timeline

  • 1233–1243 – The Sienese Mattasalà di Spinello has ponte.[2]
  • 1253 – A Venetian document has ponte.[4]
  • Before 1321 – Dante has ponticello.[4]
  • Before 1400 – Franco Sacchetti uses ponte for builders' scaffolding.[4]
  • 1561 – Citolini uses it for the deck of a ship.[4]
  • 1612 – Ponticello names the bridge of a stringed instrument.[4]
  • 1904 – Ponte a filo, an electrical bridge, is recorded.[4]
  • 1948 – Ponte aereo “airlift” is recorded.[12]
  • 1963 – Ponte “long weekend” is in Migliorini's appendix.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bridge: a structure that carries a road or railway over a river, a valley or another obstacle: Il nuovo ponte collega le due sponde del fiume.[6][13][14]
  2. Any structure that connects two points, however simple: un ponte di tavole.[6][15]
  3. (figurative) A link, a means of connection; a person who acts as a go-between: Il festival fa da ponte tra culture diverse.[6][13][14]
  4. One or more working days between two holidays, taken off to make a long weekend: Per il primo maggio faremo il ponte.[6][1][13]
  5. scaffolding used by builders and painters.[6][4]
  6. (nautical) A deck of a ship.[6][14][1]
  7. (dentistry) A fixed dental prosthesis resting on natural teeth.[14][4]
  8. (mechanics) The drive axle of a motor vehicle, (electricity) a bridge circuit for measuring resistance.[4][6]
  9. (sports) An arched position with hands and feet on the ground.[4]

Adjective

  1. (invariable) Interim, bridging: governo ponte, legge ponte.[6][1]

Word family

  • ponticello
  • pontile
  • pontiere
  • pontone
  • ponteggio
  • ponteggiatore
  • pontato

Usage notes

Common idioms include tagliare or rompere i ponti “to break off all relations”, bruciarsi i ponti alle spalle “to burn one's bridges”, fare ponti d'oro “to offer great advantages”, the proverb a nemico che fugge ponti d'oro and n'è passata di acqua sotto i ponti “a lot of water has flowed under the bridge”.[16][13][15][17] The gioco del Ponte is an old Pisan contest between two teams for possession of a bridge.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  3. ^ 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, 853
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  9. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
  10. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  12. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3014
  13. ^ 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
  14. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana