rilevare

Forms

rilevare (first-person singular present rilèvo, first-person singular past historic rilevài, past participle rilevàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin relevō (“to raise again, lift up; to relieve”), formed from levō (“to lift; to lighten”) with re- marking movement upwards.^[2][3][4][5] That verb is formed on levis (“light”).^[5]

The same word is French relever, Occitan relevar, Catalan relevar, Spanish relevar and Portuguese relevar.^[3][6] The noun rilievo keeps the old diphthong of the stressed stem, which the verb has given up, as sollievo does beside sollevare.^[2]

DEI treats the 19th-century sense “to note, point out” as taken from the French verb, since Latin did not have it.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni, before 1292, with the now rare sense “to lift again, raise up”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb for raising someone from the ground and, figuratively, for lifting the spirit or redeeming from sin;^[4][2] Dante has the pronominal rilevarsi “to rise up”.^[4][2] Intransitively it meant “to matter” and “to help”: Dante writes la legge natural nulla rileva and Petrarch il sempre sospirar nulla releva.^[4] Giovanni Villani uses it for “to learn, come to know”, and in the 16th century it meant “to stand out in relief”.^[2]

“To take over” a business or a debt is recorded before 1566 in Annibal Caro, and “to relieve” someone on duty in 1617, a sense the purists objected to.^[2] “To bring out, point out” is recorded before 1755 in Scipione Maffei and “to note” in 1804; in 1785 Cesarotti still offered nulla rileva as the native phrase to set against a French one.^[2] Tommaseo records the surveyor's sense in 1872, and “to pick someone up” to take them elsewhere appears in 1959.^[2]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses rilevare for “to lift again”.^[2]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses rilevarsi for “to rise up”.^[2]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses it for “to learn”.^[2]
• Before 1566 – Annibal Caro uses it for “to take over”.^[2]
• 1617 – The sense “to relieve someone” is recorded.^[2]
• 1804 – The sense “to note, observe” is recorded in the Milanese press.^[2]
• 1872 – Tommaseo records the sense “to survey”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To notice, detect; to point out: rilevare un errore nel conto.^[4][8][1]
2. (transitive) To establish as the result of an inquiry or analysis.^[8][4]
3. (transitive) To survey, take a reading of: rilevare un tratto di fiume.^[4][8][1]
4. (transitive) To take over a business or a contract from someone.^[4][1]
5. (transitive) To relieve someone on duty; by extension, to pick someone up.^[4]
6. (transitive) To lift again;^[4][8] (literary) to raise up, comfort.^[4][8]
7. (transitive) To bring out in relief.^[4][8]
8. (intransitive) To stand out;^[4] (literary) to matter: non rileva.^[4]

Word family

• rilevamento
• rilevante
• rilevanza
• rilevatario
• rilevato
• rilevazione
• rilievo
• rilevatore
• rilevabile

Related words

• levare
• sollevare
• Latin relevo

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3253
8. ^ 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