Etymologically
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quasi

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Pronunciation

Forms

quasi (invariable)[1] Old forms include Old Italian guasi, quaxi and quazi.[2] Old northern Italian had forms with a prefixed /s/, such as Old Venetian and Paduan squasio, and squasi is still northern.[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin quasi (“as if; about, nearly”), which Nocentini classes as a learned borrowing.[5][6][7] Wiktionary takes it as inherited: the final /i/ looks learned, but Italian often has /i/ for final /e/ in invariable words, as in avanti and tardi.[1] The word is formed from Latin quam (“as, how”) + sī (“if”), losing the /m/ without lengthening the vowel, as suits a small grammatical word.[6][8][9][1]

Nocentini sets French quasi and Spanish casi beside it, and DEI holds that the French word was taken from Italian in the 14th century.[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the 13th-century Lauda escorialense, with the sense “about, nearly”.[6] GDLI quotes the line of the Virgin's lament: “Te portai in lo meu corpo / et or te vego quasi mortu” (I carried you in my body, and now I see you almost dead).[2]

Semantic evolution

The conjunction “as if” is in Dante, before 1321, who also has quasi che.[6][3] Leon Battista Alberti, in the 15th century, uses it for “hardly”.[3] In the middle of the 18th century legal language began to prefix it to nouns, as in quasi-contratto and quasi-delitto (1749), following Latin usage such as quasi pater.[3] In the 20th century scientific Italian, after English, extended this to abstract nouns.[3] The doubled quasi quasi expresses being tempted to do something.[7][10]

Timeline

  • 13th century – The Lauda escorialense uses quasi “almost”.[6]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses it as a conjunction “as if”.[6]
  • 14th century – French borrows quasi, according to DEI.[3]
  • 1749 – The legal terms quasi-contratto and quasi-delitto are recorded.[3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. almost, nearly: Il treno era quasi vuoto.[7][10][11]
  2. quasi mai: hardly ever: Da queste parti non nevica quasi mai.[7][10]
  3. Softening a statement; doubled, quasi quasi expresses being tempted to do something: Quasi quasi mi prendo un gelato.[7][10]
  4. With a verb, of something that nearly happened: Quasi perdevo l'aereo.[7][10]
  5. Before a noun, with or without a hyphen, “near-”: un quasi incidente.[7][10]

Conjunction

  1. as if, with the subjunctive: Mi guardava, quasi volesse dirmi qualcosa.[7][6]

Word family

  • quasiché
  • quasimente

Usage notes

The /s/ is voiced: /ˈkwa.zi/.[1][12] Quasi as the first part of compounds (quasi-moneta, quasi-reato) is common in legal, economic and scientific language.[7][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 15, 93
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3174
  4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 356
  10. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  11. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 815