realtà

Forms

realtà f^[1] The older form is realità, which the DEI places before realtà and which survives as a technical and legal word.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a semi-learned borrowing, borrowed from Medieval Latin reālitās, from Late Latin reālis (“real”), from Latin rēs (“thing”) with the suffix -ālis.^[4][1][5] Sabatini–Coletti derive it from the accusative reālitātem, with the loss of the final syllable and of the unstressed vowel before the stress.^[6] Wiktionary calls realità the learned doublet.^[1] GRADIT treats the word as a variant of that learned form, recorded before 1550.^[3] The Medieval Latin word was coined in late scholastic philosophy; the GDLI attributes it to Duns Scotus.^[7][2]

De Vaan traces the Latin noun to Proto-Indo-European *reh₁ís (“wealth, goods”), cognate with Sanskrit रयि (rayí, “property, goods”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is from Paolo Sarpi, 1617–1619, in the sense “what has a real existence”.^[9] Galileo also uses it, as in non già in esistenza e realtà (“not, however, in existence and reality”).^[2][10] GRADIT dates the word from before 1673.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The sense “truth of the matter” is recorded in 1651, in F. Palmerini, and the adverbial in realtà “actually, in fact” is in Galileo.^[9][10] Petrocchi's dictionary of 1891 records the senses “the world of concrete things” and “the condition of being real”.^[9] Tommaseo noted that realtà was the common word and that realità might serve in philosophy.^[10]

In the 20th century the word gained the sense of a local or social situation (la realtà del quartiere), the computing term realtà virtuale, and Freud's principio di realtà.^[11][12][3] The Domenica del Corriere ran a column called realtà romanzesca for true but incredible stories.^[2][5]

Timeline

• Before 1550 – The older form realità is recorded.^[3]
• 1617–1619 – Paolo Sarpi uses realtà.^[9]
• 1651 – F. Palmerini uses it for “the truth of a fact”.^[9]
• 1891 – Petrocchi's dictionary records “the world of concrete things”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The condition of being real; actual existence: la realtà di un pericolo.^[5][6][3]
2. Everything that exists, the real world, as opposed to the imagined: fuggire dalla realtà.^[3][5][11]
3. Something real, a fact: Il progetto è ormai una realtà.^[5][6]
4. Everyday life in its concrete aspects: la realtà del lavoro in fabbrica.^[6][5]
5. The set of conditions of a place or community; a situation: la realtà economica della regione.^[11][12][1]

Word family

• irrealtà
• surrealtà

Related words

• reale
• irreale
• realità
• Medieval Latin reālitās

Usage notes

In realtà means “actually, in fact” and can introduce a correction.^[5][11] Set phrases include realtà virtuale (virtual reality), realtà aumentata (augmented reality) and principio di realtà (the reality principle).^[3][12] A separate old word realtà meant “royalty, kingship”, from Old French reauté (Latin rēgālitās); it was used from the 14th to the 19th century, for example in the 1363 Italian translation of Marsilius of Padua.^[2][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3215
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. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e f Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli