putrire

Forms

putrire (first-person singular present putrìsco, first-person singular past historic putrìi, past participle putrìto, first-person singular subjunctive putrìsca or pùtra, auxiliary èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *putrīre, from Latin putreō (“to be rotten”) with a change of conjugation.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Its forms were partly taken from putrēscō (“to become rotten”), which Nocentini names beside the simple verb and Devoto–Oli as the source.^[1][3][6] The Latin verb comes from putris (“rotten, decaying”).^[3][5][7]

The word belongs to western Romance: the same verb is French pourrir, Occitan poirir, Catalan pudrir and Spanish podrir.^[3][8] In the south it lives on in Calabria and in Sicilian mpurriri.^[8]

The Latin adjective is related to Old Irish othar (“sickness”), from Proto-Indo-European *puH- (“rotten, foul”), the root also of pūs (“pus”) and pūteō (“to stink”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEI's first record is in Boccaccio, and GRADIT and Nocentini date the verb to the 14th century, in the sense “to rot”.^[8][2][4][3] A vernacular Bible says that those who died of famine putrirono “rotted”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also had a pronominal pudrirsi.^[2] From the rotting of the body the verb came to mean wasting away, losing strength through hunger or want.^[9][4] Giusti has a filthy sewer that in se medesimo putre e fermenta “rots and ferments in itself”, and Gozzano writes of struggles dove l'anima putre “where the soul rots”.^[5] By extension it also meant “to stink”.^[4]

The verb has two sets of present forms, putrisco beside putre and putrono.^[6][10][7] It is now literary and rare: everyday Italian says imputridire.^[10][6][1]

Timeline

• 14th century – Boccaccio uses putrire “to rot”.^[8][4][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary, rare) To rot, to decay; to imputridire.^{[4][6][11][10]}
2. (figurative) To lose vigour, to waste away.^[4][7][5]
3. (by extension) To stink.^[4]

Related words

• putre
• putrido
• imputridire
• Latin puter
• French pourrir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 813
3. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
6. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
8. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3160
9. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 14, 1065
10. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse