rilievo

Forms

rilievo m (plural rilievi)^[1]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Italian rilevare.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Its stressed ⟨ie⟩ comes from the forms of the verb stressed on the root, with the regular diphthong of Latin short ⟨e⟩ in an open syllable, as in sollievo beside sollevare.^[3][7] DELI, after Merlo, counts it among the nouns that kept such old verb forms, while the verb's own stressed forms were remodelled.^[2] Wiktionary instead derives it from a Late Latin relevium.^[1]

French has a parallel formation, French relief, while Spanish relieve and Portuguese relevo were borrowed from Italian, spread with the success of the word in sculpture.^[3] Meyer-Lübke and Körting already set the French noun beside the Italian noun, with the old sense “leftovers of a meal”.^[8][9] DEI says that the sculptural sense passed into French, where it is dated 1571.^[6]

The verb is relevō (“to raise, lighten”), formed re- and levō (“to lift; to lighten”).^[3][10] De Vaan lists this verb among the derivatives of Latin levis (“light”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ- (“light”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest sense is “what is left over from a meal”, from rilevare in the sense “to take away”: DELI notes it in the poets of the 13th century, and DEI dates it to the 13th century.^[2][6] GRADIT dates the noun to before 1292.^[4] The sense “standing out from a surface” is first in Boccaccio, 1341–42.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio already used rilievo for the curves of a body, piccioli rilievi under a dress.^[12] The technique of sculpture in which figures stand out from the ground is in C. Cennini at the end of the 14th century, di basso rilievo in Vasari, 1550, and di tutto rilievo in Cellini, before 1571.^[2] From sculpture come the compounds bassorilievo and altorilievo.^[3][1]

The figurative sense “importance, prominence” is recorded from 1561, in Piccolomini, and mettere in rilievo “to point out” from 1905.^[2] The sense “remark, criticism”, from before 1799 in Spallanzani, was attacked by the purists as a copy of French relief.^[2] Geography adopted the word for the high ground of a region in 1937.^[2] In surveying and architecture a rilievo is the measurement of a site or building.^[4][13]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – GRADIT's date for the first record of rilievo.^[4]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses rilievo for something that stands out from a surface.^[2]
• End of the 14th century – C. Cennini uses it for relief sculpture.^[2]
• 1550 – Vasari writes di basso rilievo.^[2]
• 1561 – The figurative sense “importance” appears.^[2]
• 1571 – French relief is recorded as a term of sculpture.^[6]
• 1937 – The Enciclopedia italiana uses the word for the high ground of a region.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fact of standing out from a surface or background; relief, prominence: in rilievo, raised.^[4][5][14]
2. The effect of depth in a drawing or picture.^[4]
3. A part that sticks out; a protrusion, bulge.^[4][5][13]
4. (geography) A natural elevation of the land; in the plural, the hills and mountains of a region.^[4][5][13]
5. (figurative) Importance, prominence: di rilievo, important;^[4][5][14] mettere in rilievo, to point out.^[4][5][14]
6. A remark or observation, often critical.^[4][2]
7. (art) The technique of relief sculpture, and a work made with it.^[4][13][5]
8. (surveying) The measurement of the shape and size of land, a building or an object, and the drawing that records it.^[4][13]
9. (chiefly in the plural) The leftovers of a meal.^[4][6]

Word family

• bassorilievo
• altorilievo

Related words

• rilevare
• rilevante
• sollievo
• French relief
• Latin relevō

Usage notes

DEI gives the sense “leftovers of a meal” and the sense “raised part” as separate headwords, both deverbal nouns of rilevare.^[6] Wiktionary gives the pronunciation with an open or a closed ⟨e⟩.^[1]

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 Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d e 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3253
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 16, 372
13. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana