povertà

Forms

povertà f (invariable)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian povertade and Old Italian povertate, and old and dialect forms Old Italian poertà, Old Italian porvertà and Old Italian povertae.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin paupertās (“poverty”), through the accusative, with the old ending ⟨-tade⟩ later cut to ⟨-tà⟩.^[5][6][7][8] The Latin noun is formed from pauper (“poor”) with the suffix -tās.^[9][1][6]

The same word is French pauvreté, Occitan paubretat and Spanish pobredad.^[6][10] The other Latin word for poverty, pauperiēs, survives only in Occitan and in the Sursilvan Romansh.^[10]

De Vaan reconstructs the adjective as Proto-Italic *pau(o)-pa/oro-, from a Proto-Indo-European *peh₂u-(o-)p(o)rh₃-o- (“providing little”).^[11] It was first a thematic adjective, moved into the third declension after its opposite dīves (“rich”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini and GRADIT date the word to the early 12th century.^[6][7] DELI's first literary records are povertade in the Novellino at the end of the 13th century and povertà in Jacopone da Todi, who died in 1306, with the sense “the state of being poor”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Brunetto Latini already uses the plural povertadi for the hardships of the poor, and Dante (1304–08) has the transferred sense “lack, scarcity”.^[3][5] In the Purgatorio Dante praises one who preferred “poverty with virtue” to great wealth with vice (Con povertà volesti anzi virtude).^[4]

With Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans, povertà became a religious ideal: voluntary or evangelical poverty, the renunciation of material goods chosen for the sake of spiritual perfection, and the vow of poverty taken on entering a religious order.^[12][2][7] Literature personified it as Madonna Povertà.^[2] In the 18th century Gozzi used it for the poor as a group, a sense now obsolete.^[10][13]

Modern Italian adds the economic and statistical senses: insufficient income per head, and the distinction between povertà assoluta and povertà relativa.^[7][14] The sense “scarcity” extends to land poor in vegetation and to a lack of ideas or imagination.^[7][13]

Timeline

• Early 12th century – The word is first recorded.^[6][7]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses povertade.^[5]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses the form povertà.^[5]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses it for “lack, scarcity”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. poverty: the condition of lacking the means needed to live, indigence, miseria: la famiglia viveva in grande povertà.^[7][14][8]
2. (economics) Insufficient income per head of a population or country.^[7][14]
3. (religion) Voluntary renunciation of material goods for the sake of spiritual perfection, as in the voto di povertà taken by members of religious orders.^[7][12][13]
4. Scarcity, penuria, lack of something: povertà di risorse naturali.^[7][13][8]
5. Barrenness or dryness of land, scarcity of vegetation.^[7][1]
6. (obsolete) The poor as a class.^[13][10]

Related words

• povero
• pauperismo
• Latin paupertās
• French pauvreté

Usage notes

Povertà is invariable in the plural.^[7][1] Set expressions include soglia di povertà “poverty line” and voto di povertà “vow of poverty”.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
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, 1136
4. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3045
11. ^ a b 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 Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ 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