primaio

Forms

primaio (feminine primaia, masculine plural primai, feminine plural primaie)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin prīmārius (“of the first rank”), formed from prīmus (“first”) with the suffix -ārius.^[1][2][3][4] The ending shows the normal Tuscan development of the Latin suffix into -aio.^[5]

In Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance the Latin word for “first” took on special senses and was replaced by the descendants of the adjective in -ārius: French premier, Occitan premier, Catalan primer, Spanish primero and Portuguese primeiro.^[6][7] Italian also has the learned doublet primario and primiero, taken from French.^[1][7][8]

Nocentini traces the Latin word for “first” to an older *prīsmos, a superlative of the adverb prī (“before”), “the one in front of all”.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli date the word from 1262, with the sense “first”.^[9][4][10] The DEI's first record is in Dante.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the word several times, as in Così discesi del cerchio primaio / giù nel secondo “so I went down from the first circle into the second”, and in lo scaglion primaio / bianco marmo era “the first step was white marble”.^[9][4][10] He also uses it in the sense “original, primitive”.^[9] Boccaccio has il primaio uomo “the first man” to whom someone told a piece of news.^[8] The word has since gone out of use and survives only as an archaism.^[10][12][1]

Timeline

• 1262 – first record.^[9][4][10]
• 14th century – Dante uses primaio “first”.^[11][9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (archaic, literary) First, the same as primo.^{[9][4][10][12][1]}
2. (archaic) original, primitive.^[9][10]
3. (archaic) principal, chief.^[10]

Related words

• primo
• primario
• primiero
• Latin prīmārius
• French premier

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3079
12. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana