rigettare

Forms

rigettare (first-person singular present rigètto, first-person singular past historic rigettài, past participle rigettàto, auxiliary avére or (in the meaning "to resurface, to reappear") èssere)^[1] Older and literary forms include Old Italian rigittare, Old Italian regittare and Old Italian regettare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rēiectō (“to throw back violently or repeatedly; to spit out”), the intensive of rēiciō (“to throw back”), formed on its past participle rēiectus.^{[4][5][6][7][1]} The Latin verb is recorded in Silius Italicus and Fronto,^[7] though Meyer-Lübke marks it as a reconstructed form.^[8] DELI notes that in the sense “to vomit” the 6th-century Lombard Dioscorides may have the form Late Latin reiactāre.^[4] That verb is formed from re- (“back”) and iaciō (“to throw”).^[5][9][10]

The /e/ of the stem, against the /a/ of classical Latin iactō, is the vowel of compounds such as coniectō and disiectō, which spread to the simple verb as Vulgar Latin *iectāre, the source of the Italian simple verb.^[4] By surface analysis the verb is also ri- + gettare, and Gabrielli treats it as such a compound.^[1][3] In its Italian senses the prefix works both as an iterative, “again”, and as the prefix of contrary action, “back”.^[4]

Related forms elsewhere are Catalan regitar, from which Old Spanish took a form of its own, and Portuguese rejeitar, said of a falcon bringing up food, while Emilian dialects use it for “to vomit”.^[8] Compare also Piedmontese rigeté.^[1] The deverbal noun rigetto and the learned reietto go back to the same Latin family.^[4][11]

The root of the simple verb is Proto-Italic, from Proto-Indo-European *(H)ieh₁- (“to throw, let go”), which also gave Ancient Greek ἵημι (híēmi, “to send, throw”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record, in Aldobrandino da Siena's health manual of 1310, is the popular sense “to vomit”.^[4] The sense “to throw again, throw back” is in a 14th-century Italian translation of Valerius Maximus: un altro maroso ... lo rigittò nella nave (“another wave threw him back into the ship”).^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Before 1342 Domenico Cavalca wrote that God rigetta a sinner, the first instance of the sense “to refuse, cast off”.^[4][13] The reflexive rigettarsi “to throw oneself again” is also 14th-century.^[4] In the 16th century the verb gained craft and garden senses: “to recast” molten metal (Biringuccio's regittare before 1537, Vasari's rigettare in 1550) and “to put out new shoots” (Roseo 1592, Soderini before 1597).^[4]

The figurative sense “to reject, not accept” is recorded again before 1729 in Salvini, and Tommaseo cites the verb with proposals, petitions, opinions and slanders.^[4][13] The intransitive “to come out again”, said of stains showing through, is dated 1939–40.^[4] Today the verb is used in law and administration for dismissing an application or appeal, and in medicine for an organism that does not accept a transplanted organ, the sense that rigetto took in 1967.^[6][14][4]

Timeline

• 1310 – Aldobrandino da Siena uses rigettare for “to vomit”.^[4]
• 14th century – A translation of Valerius Maximus has rigittò “threw back”.^[4]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca says God rigetta the sinner.^[4]
• Before 1537 – Biringuccio uses regittare for recasting metal.^[4]
• 1550 – Vasari has rigettare in the same sense.^[4]
• 1592 – Roseo uses rigittare for plants putting out shoots.^[4]
• 1598 – The noun rigetto is recorded by Florio.^[4]
• 1939–1940 – The intransitive “to come out again” is recorded in Palazzi's dictionary.^[4]
• 1967 – Rigetto is used in La Stampa for the rejection of a transplanted organ.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To throw again: Ha rigettato la rete nel fiume.^[6][10][15]
2. (transitive) To throw back or out; to cast up, as the sea does: Le onde hanno rigettato una barca sulla sabbia.^[6][15][16]
3. (transitive, figurative) To reject, refuse firmly: Il consiglio ha rigettato il progetto.^[6][15][9]
4. (law, administration) To dismiss an application, appeal or petition.^[6][15][14]
5. (medicine) Of an organism, to reject a transplanted organ as incompatible.^[6][16]
6. (colloquial) To vomit, also without an object: Dopo il viaggio in nave ha rigettato.^[6][15][16]
7. (transitive) To recast, pour molten or liquid material into a mould again.^[6][15][10]
8. (botany) Of plants, to put out new shoots, also without an object.^[6][10][16]
9. (intransitive, with essere) To come out again, reappear, as a stain through plaster.^[10][3][1]
10. (reflexive, rigettarsi) To throw oneself again, also figuratively: Si rigettò sul divano.^[10][9][16]

Word family

• rigetto
• rigettabile
• rigettamento
• rigettatore

Related words

• gettare
• reietto
• reiezione
• Latin rēiciō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 16, 315
3. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
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 h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana