rilassato

Forms

rilassato (feminine rilassata, masculine plural rilassati, feminine plural rilassate)^[1] Old forms are Old Italian relassato and the Latinizing relaxato.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is the past participle of rilassare (“to relax, loosen”), used as an adjective.^[4][5][6][1] The verb is a learned form of Latin relaxō (“to loosen; to relieve”), recorded as Old Italian relassare before 1342 in Domenico Cavalca and as rilassare in Florio's dictionary of 1598.^[7][4] GRADIT treats it as a variant of rilasciare, the popular continuation of the same Latin verb.^[8][4] The Latin verb is re- and laxō (“to loosen”), from laxus (“wide, loose”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Indo-European *slǵ-so-.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini, Devoto–Oli and Sabatini–Coletti date the adjective to the 16th century.^[4][5][6] The early examples in GDLI are medical: limbs weakened by hunger in Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, and stomachs rilassati in the physician Baldassare Pisanelli.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th and 18th centuries the word described slack fibres, muscles and joints: Francesco Redi writes of vessels grown weak and relassate, and Anton Maria Salvini of the slack muscles of the eye.^[2][3] Vasari used it for the patient, relaxed pose of a martyr in a painting.^[3] The figurative sense “lax” was applied to morals and discipline: costumi rilassati.^[5][6]

The sense “calm, free of nervous tension” is recent: DELI, quoting Carlo Tagliavini (1960), says that rilassare and rilassarsi took it from English relax.^[7] In phonetics rilassato describes a sound made with little muscular tension, opposed to teso.^[5][6][10]

Timeline

• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca has the verb as relassare.^[7]
• 16th century – The adjective rilassato is recorded.^[4][5][6]
• 1598 – Florio records rilassare.^[7]
• 1960 – Carlo Tagliavini notes the new sense “to relax” after English relax.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. relaxed, free of nervous or emotional tension, calm: Dopo una settimana al mare era finalmente rilassato.^[8][5][6][1]
2. Of muscles, without tension; of skin or tissue, flabby, sagging.^[8][5]
3. (figurative) lax, morally slack: una disciplina rilassata.^[8][6][11]
4. (phonetics) Of a sound, made with weak muscular tension.^[5][6][10]

Word family

• rilassatezza
• rilassatamente

Related words

• rilassare
• rilassamento
• rilassante
• rilasciare
• Latin relaxō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 16, 358
3. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
11. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli