popolo

Forms

popolo m (plural popoli)^[1] Older forms include Old Italian povolo, puovolo, povoro, povo and populo.^[2] Northern forms such as Old Venetian puovolo, Old Lombard povoro and Old Genoese povo continue the Latin word by regular sound change.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin populus (“people, body of citizens”).^[5][6][1] DELI calls the Tuscan form learned and DEI semi-learned, since it keeps the /p/ between vowels, while the Old Italian forms with /v/ show the popular development.^[7][4][2] The word is found across Romance: French peuple, Occitan poble, Catalan poble, Spanish pueblo, Portuguese povo, Sardinian pobulu and Romanian popor;^[5][3] Spanish and Portuguese use it also for “village”.^[5][3] Welsh pobl was borrowed from Latin.^[3]

The Latin word is old: earlier forms are poplus and, from the early 5th century BC, poplos.^[8][1] It continues Proto-Italic *poplos (“army”), the source also of Umbrian puplum (“the body of citizens in arms”).^[8][1] Its further origin is unknown.^[8][1] DELI, DEI and the GDLI call it pre-Indo-European and compare the town name Etruscan pupluna.^[7][4][9] Nocentini takes the Latin word from Umbrian and traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷlo- (“wheel”) through a sense “knee”, the knee being a symbol of generation.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in an anonymous poem from Ravenna (1180–1210).^[2] DELI dates the form povolo to 1242–1243 (Guido Faba) and popolo to a 13th-century Judaeo-Italian elegy, in the sense “the inhabitants of a state or city, under one civil order”.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval communes popolo was a political term: the urban middle class of merchants and craftsmen organised in guilds, which shared power with the noble families or replaced them, and the assembly or regime of that class.^[2] The popolo grasso were the richer members of the major guilds and the popolo minuto those of the minor guilds; at Florence the primo popolo and secondo popolo were the popular regimes before and after 1266.^[2][10] The sense “the lower classes” is in Bono Giamboni (before 1292), and “people with common traits” in Martello (before 1727).^[7]

In 1950 Migliorini observed that the parties of the far left had begun to call only the proletariat the “true people”, while the word politically covers citizens of every class.^[7] Journalists now speak of the popolo of a group with shared habits, such as the popolo della notte.^[6][11] The pejorative popolaccio gave French populace (1555), which passed into English (1572).^[4]

Timeline

• 1180–1210 – Popolo appears in an anonymous Ravenna poem.^[2]
• 1242–1243 – Guido Faba uses the form povolo.^[7][6]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses it for the lower classes.^[7]
• 1310–1312 – Dino Compagni uses popolano.^[7]
• 1555 – French populace, from Italian popolaccio, is recorded.^[4]
• 1618 – Popolazione “the inhabitants of a place” is recorded.^[7]
• 1950 – Migliorini comments on the political use of popolo.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A people, nation: a community sharing language, culture and traditions, usually on one territory: i popoli del Mediterraneo.^[6][12][13]
2. The citizens of a state, as distinct from its rulers: il re parlò al popolo.^[6][13]
3. The people of a common faith; the congregation of a church or parish: il popolo di Dio.^[6][12][10]
4. A group with shared interests or habits: il popolo dei pendolari.^[6][12][11]
5. The common people, the less well-off classes: un uomo del popolo.^[6][13][11]
6. A crowd, a multitude of people.^[14]
7. (history) In the medieval communes, the organised citizens of the guilds and their regime.^[2][10]

Word family

• popolano
• popolare
• popolarità
• popolaresco
• popolarizzare
• popolazione
• popolino
• popoloso
• popolamento
• impopolare
• ripopolare
• spopolare
• spopolamento
• popolaccio

Related words

• pubblico
• pioppo
• Latin populus
• French peuple

Usage notes

Set phrases include a furor di popolo (by unanimous popular demand) and the pejorative popolo bue (the gullible masses).^[6][11] An obsolete popolo “poplar”, from Latin pōpulus, is recorded from 1312 in Orvieto, in Pietro de' Crescenzi, and in Alamanni's popolo altero; it is now pioppo.^{[2][6][4][15]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3018
5. ^ a b c d 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 880
10. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 885