quantità

Forms

quantità f (invariable)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian quantitade, Old Italian quantitate and Old Italian quantetà.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin quantitās (“quantity, size, number”), from the accusative quantitātem with the loss of its final syllable.^[3][4][5][1] It is in turn from Latin quantus (“how much, how great”) with the suffix -tās, made on the model of Ancient Greek ποσότης (posótēs), itself from πόσος (pósos, “how much”).^[5][6][1] Latin Wiktionary credits the coinage to Cicero and compares quālitās.^[1]

The Latin word passed, through the Latin of Saint Bernard, into French quantité, already in the 12th century.^[7][2] The same word is Spanish cantidad.^[5]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *kʷāntos, which Wiktionary explains either as a thematic form of Proto-Indo-European *kʷéh₂onts (“how much, how many”) or as a derivative of *kʷām, the source of quam.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Novellino at the end of the 13th century, where the word means an amount that can be reckoned by number, weight or size.^[8] Tommaseo quotes from it Picciola quantitade mi sembra questa a donare a così valente uomo (“this seems to me a small amount to give to so worthy a man”).^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the word also came to mean a great number, an abundance.^[7] Old Italian used it as a term of philosophy as well: Iacopone writes of things “formed without form” that have no termen né quantitate (“neither limit nor quantity”).^[2] An old sense, a sum of money, appears in Boccaccio.^[10]

From the 16th century quantità named the length of a syllable in prosody, first in G. Muzio, before 1576.^[8] In the 19th century philosophy used it for the property by which a body takes up space.^[7] Modern Italian has many technical phrases, such as quantità di moto (momentum) in physics and the grammatical complemento di quantità.^[3][11] Set against qualità, the word often has a negative ring.^[12][4]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses quantità for a measurable amount.^[8]
• 1300s – The sense “great number, abundance” and the adjective quantitativo appear.^[7][5]
• Before 1576 – G. Muzio uses the word for the length of a syllable.^[8]
• 1800s – Philosophy uses it for the property of occupying space.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. quantity, amount: the property of what can be measured or counted; the number, mass or size of something: Ha comprato una piccola quantità di riso.^[3][12][10]
2. A large number, a great abundance: In cortile c'era una quantità di bambini. The phrase in quantità means in abundance.^[3][12][11]
3. (commerce) A lot or consignment of goods.^[4]
4. (mathematics, physics) Any measurable or countable magnitude: quantità di moto, momentum.^[3][4][11]
5. (philosophy) In Aristotle, a basic category of being, the measure of substance; in Kant, the first class of judgements.^[3]
6. (logic) The character of a proposition as universal or particular.^[13][14]
7. (linguistics, prosody) The length of a vowel or syllable, short or long.^[3][10][13]
8. (obsolete) A sum of money.^[10]

Word family

• quantitativo

Related words

• quanto
• qualità
• Latin quantitas

Usage notes

Quantità is invariable: la quantità, le quantità.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3170
8. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ 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)
11. ^ a b c 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 Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org