pranzo

Forms

pranzo m (plural pranzi)^[1] Old and literary Italian also had pranso.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin prandium (“late-morning or midday meal”), derived from prandeō (“to have one's morning or midday meal”).^[4][5][1] Its original sense must have been “first meal”.^[4][6]

Sardinian pranzu, Romanian prânz and Dalmatian prinz continue the same Latin word, and Old French prangier (“to dine”) continues a verb derived from it.^[5][7][1] Beside the popular word, Italian has the learned prandio.^[8]

The Latin word is usually explained as a compound meaning “first meal”: the first part is Proto-Italic *prāmo- (“first”), from Proto-Indo-European *prh₃-mo-, cognate with Lithuanian pirmas (“first”), and the second the root of edō (“to eat”).^[9][5][10] Wiktionary compares Ancient Greek ἄριστον (áriston, “breakfast”) and mentions another proposal for the first part, Proto-Indo-European *preh₂m (“early”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Novellino, at the end of the 13th century, in the sense “the main meal of the day”: Dopo il pranzo parlò Socrate alli ambasciadori (“after the meal Socrates spoke to the ambassadors”).^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Jacopone da Todi offers a pranzo of black, hard, unleavened bread that not even a dog would gnaw, using the word for the food itself.^[2][11] In ordinary use the word named the midday meal, as opposed to cena; in the formal language of invitations and restaurants it can name the evening meal, as opposed to colazione.^[2][12] Tommaseo describes it as the larger meal of the day, taken at midday or before nightfall.^[11]

It also came to mean a rich meal with many guests, a banquet, as in pranzo di nozze (wedding banquet).^[6][3] Pranzetto, a simple meal, is recorded before 1768.^[4]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Novellino has pranzo and pranzare.^[4]
• Before 1306 – Jacopone da Todi uses pranzo for the food eaten.^[2]
• Before 1768 – Pranzetto is recorded in Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The main meal of the day, especially the midday meal, lunch: A che ora si mangia il pranzo?^[6][13][8]
2. The food served at that meal: un pranzo leggero.^[6][12]
3. (formal) The evening meal, dinner.^[6][13][12]
4. A banquet, a rich meal with many guests: pranzo di nozze.^[6][8][3]
5. Lunchtime: Ti chiamo dopo pranzo.^[13][8][3]

Word family

• pranzare
• pranzetto
• dopopranzo

Related words

• prandio
• Latin prandium
• Romanian prânz

Usage notes

Sala da pranzo is the dining room.^[3][12] Wiktionary gives both /ˈpran.d͡zo/ and /ˈpran.t͡so/.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, p. 14, 5
3. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
13. ^ 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