rapire

Forms

rapire (first-person singular present rapìsco, first-person singular past historic rapìi, past participle rapìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old language also had Old Italian rapere, which keeps the Latin conjugation.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *rapīre, the classical verb Latin rapere (“to seize, carry off”) moved from the third to the fourth conjugation.^[5][6][7][1] The change is Vulgar Latin, as Romanian rapi shows; French ravir continues the same verb.^[2][6][8]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *rapiō and Proto-Indo-European *h₁rp-i- (“to seize”), with cognates in Ancient Greek ἐρέπτομαι (eréptomai, “to devour, snatch away”), Albanian rjep (“to tear off, rob”) and Lithuanian rėpti.^[9][6][1] If the root was Proto-Indo-European *h₁rep-, the Latin stem is a secondary zero grade;^[9] Schrijver instead posits a separate root for the Latin and Lithuanian verbs.^[9] Devoto glossed the root as “to take greedily”.^[10]

Italian also has words taken from the Latin family: rapina, from the Latin noun, which was usual in the plural in classical Latin, with rapinare and rapinatore, and rapido and ratto.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is before 1292 in Giamboni's treatise on the misery of man, in the sense “to carry off by force or fraud”; the Zingarelli dates the verb to about 1261.^[5][11][7] Iacopone, before 1306, has como asscaran rapire, “to rob like a cutthroat”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb also meant carrying off a woman: Giamboni's treatise on vices and virtues defines rapinamento as the abduction of a girl in order to marry her once she has been seduced.^[5][12] In Dante's Paradiso Piccarda says that men fuor mi rapiron de la dolce chiostra, “dragged me out of the sweet cloister”.^[4][12]

The sense “snatch, steal” is in the Italian Gospels of the 14th century.^[5] The figurative sense “to captivate”, recorded before 1388 in Pucci, was prepared by mystical language: Iacopone often uses rapito, Cavalca has essere rapito “to be in ecstasy”, and rapimento meant being lifted to the contemplation of God in the Fioretti di San Francesco.^[5][3] In 1771 rapimento is a deep emotion.^[5]

Literary Italian also used the verb for the sweeping force of wind and water, and for death taking a person away.^[13][7] Today its most common sense is kidnapping for ransom, where the legal term is sequestrare.^[13][14] The old past participle was ratto, and poets used the present rape.^[11][15]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Giamboni uses rapire “to carry off by force”.^[5]
• Before 1306 – Iacopone uses rapito of the soul.^[5]
• 1300s – Rapimento appears in the Ottimo commento.^[5]
• Before 1388 – Pucci uses the verb in the sense “to captivate”.^[5]
• Before 1396 – Giovanni dalle Celle defines rapitore.^[5]
• 1771 – Chiari uses rapimento for a deep emotion.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To carry off a person by force or deceit; to abduct or kidnap, especially for ransom: Due uomini armati hanno rapito il giornalista.^{[7][14][16][1]}
2. In essere rapito dalla morte: to die, especially suddenly.^[7][14][11]
3. To snatch or seize, as a predator does; to steal or plunder by force.^[7][11]
4. (hyperbolic) To take someone away from a place or from the people close to them: Il nuovo lavoro ci ha rapito nostra figlia.^[7][14]
5. (literary) Of natural forces, to sweep away violently: Il torrente in piena rapì il ponte di legno.^[7][14][15]
6. (figurative) To captivate or enrapture: Quel panorama mi ha rapito.^{[7][16][11][1]}

Word family

• rapimento
• rapitore
• rapitrice
• rapito
• rapibile

Related words

• rapinare
• rapina
• rapinatore
• rapinoso
• rapido
• ratto
• French ravir
• Latin rapiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3208
3. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 824
4. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c 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 c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ 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, 459
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse