Etymologically
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regno

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈreɲ.ɲo/[1]

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
  • 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