regno

Forms

regno m (plural regni, diminutive regnétto)^[1] Old Italian also had renno, regnio and rennio.^[2] Besides regni the old plural could be regna or regnora (feminine).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rēgnum (“kingship, reign, kingdom”), a learned word.^{[4][2][1][3][5]} The Latin noun is formed from the stem of rēx (“king”) with the suffix -nus.^[1][6][7] Wiktionary explains it as the neuter of an adjective *rēgnus.^[1] DELI treats the word under its entry for re “king”.^[8]

The word is found across the western Romance languages: Old Sardinian rennu, Old French renne and modern French règne, Old Occitan renh or reine, Spanish reino and Portuguese reino.^{[9][10][4][3]} Meyer-Lübke explains the ⟨i⟩ of the Spanish and Portuguese forms as the learned ⟨gn⟩ resolved to ⟨in⟩.^[9] DEI, Nocentini and the GDLI all treat the Italian word as learned.^[3][4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the Ritmo laurenziano (late 12th or early 13th century), then Giacomino Pugliese in the first half of the 13th century, for a state ruled by a king.^[8][4][11] Giacomino praises the kingdom where his lady dwells, “the finest of all kingdoms”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Already Dante extended the word to the territory under a king's rule and to any place where someone or something holds sway: the secondo regno of the Purgatorio is the realm where the human spirit is purged.^[8][12] In Italy il Regno long meant, without qualification, the Kingdom of Naples, the only kingdom in the peninsula; a poor horse could be mocked as a caval di Regno.^[12][13] The sense “reign”, the rule of a king and its length, is dated by DELI only to 1802 (Monti).^[8]

In natural history the word names each of the great divisions of nature, animal, vegetable and mineral, and in modern biology the highest taxonomic category.^[11][14] Religious phrases such as regno dei cieli and regno di Dio remain common.^[14][15]

Timeline

• Late 12th or early 13th century – The Ritmo laurenziano has the first record.^[8]
• First half of the 13th century – Giacomino Pugliese uses regno for a kingdom.^[8][2]
• 13th century – The verb regnare is recorded.^[4]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses it for any place where someone holds sway.^[8]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for the territory under a king.^[8]
• 1802 – Monti uses it for a king's rule and its duration.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kingdom: a state ruled by a king or queen, and its territory: Il regno di Svezia ha una lunga storia.^[11][13][16]
2. The rule of a sovereign, and the period it lasts; reign: Durante il suo regno furono costruite molte strade.^[11][13][14]
3. The power of a god, and the place over which it extends: il regno di Plutone.^[11][16][17]
4. (figurative) A place or field in which someone or something dominates: La cucina è il regno di mia nonna.^[11][16][14]
5. (biology) Each of the great divisions of the natural world (animal, vegetable, mineral), and the highest category in the classification of living things.^[11][14][16]
6. (history) With a capital, the Kingdom of Naples, and later the Kingdom of Italy.^[11][17]

Word family

• regnare
• regnante
• regnicolo
• interregno
• sottoregno
• superregno

Related words

• re
• regale
• reggere
• regio
• reame
• Latin regnum
• French règne

Usage notes

Il Regno Unito is the United Kingdom, a translation of the English name.^[13][17] Il mio regno per un cavallo, from Shakespeare's Richard III, is said of someone ready to give anything for something they badly need.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3224
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 831
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana