rimuovere

Forms

rimuovere (first-person singular present rimuòvo, first-person singular past historic rimòssi, past participle rimòsso, auxiliary avére)^[1] The older forms Old Italian removare, Old Italian removere and Old Italian rimuovare are recorded, and rimovere survives as a popular, literary or regional variant.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin removeō (“to move away, remove”), a learned word according to DELI and the GDLI.^[6][2][7][1] The Latin verb is made of re- (“back, again”) and moveō (“to move”), the prefix marking movement in the opposite direction.^[6][8][1] In Italian it was remade on muovere.^[8][7]

The Latin verb was continued by Spanish remover, while Old French remouvoir merged with French remuer.^[8] De Vaan traces moveō to an aorist Proto-Indo-European *m(i̯)euh₁- (“to move”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI dates the first record to Dante in 1293–1294, in the sense ‘to shift, move aside, take away’, also used figuratively;^[6][7][10] Zingarelli puts the first record about 1261.^[6][7][10] The past participle rimosso ‘distant, secluded’ is already frequent in the 13th century, in Giordano da Pisa among others.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Dante uses the verb in the Paradiso for setting mirrors at a distance: Tre specchi prenderai; e i due rimovi / da te d’un modo (“you will take three mirrors, and set two of them away from you at the same distance”).^[2] The figurative ‘to divert, dissuade’ is also in Dante (1304–1308), and the reflexive ‘to draw back from an idea’ before 1321;^[6] ‘to depose, remove from office’ appears in the 14th century, and the rare ‘to move again’ in Boccaccio's Decameron (1348–1353).^[6]

The noun rimozione, from Latin remōtiō, followed the verb's senses: the act of removing (before 1311), dismissal from an office (1790, Beccaria) and, in psychoanalysis, the unconscious repression of feelings or drives unacceptable to the conscious mind (1930).^[6][8] The verb took the psychoanalytic sense too, recorded by Zingarelli in 1970; by extension it now also means to forget, without meaning to, something unpleasant or burdensome.^[6][4][10]

Today the verb is used above all of heavy or bulky things and of obstacles (rimuovere le macerie, rimuovere un ostacolo).^[4][7]

Timeline

• c. 1261 – Zingarelli's date for the first record.^[10]
• 1293–1294 – Dante uses rimuovere for ‘to move aside, remove’.^[6][7]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses it for ‘to divert, dissuade’.^[6]
• Before 1311 – Giordano da Pisa uses rimozione.^[6]
• Before 1321 – The reflexive ‘to draw back from an idea’ in Dante.^[6]
• 14th century – ‘To depose, dismiss from an office’ in A. Mannelli.^[6]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses the rare sense ‘to move again’.^[6]
• Before 1642 – Galileo uses rimovibile ‘removable’.^[6]
• 1930 – Rimozione is used for psychoanalytic repression in E. Weiss's Elementi di psicoanalisi.^[6]
• 1970 – Zingarelli records the psychoanalytic sense of the verb.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To remove, to take or move something away from where it is, especially something heavy or in the way: Domani rimuoveranno l’auto parcheggiata davanti al cancello.^[7][3][4]
2. (figurative) To eliminate something that hinders, such as an obstacle, a cause or a doubt.^[7][3][11]
3. To make someone leave a place.^[7][3]
4. (figurative) To dismiss or depose someone from an office or rank: Il direttore fu rimosso dall’incarico dopo lo scandalo.^[7][3][11]
5. (figurative) To dissuade, to turn someone from a purpose or an opinion.^[7][3][4]
6. (psychoanalysis) To repress, to push something out of consciousness; by extension, to forget something unpleasant.^[7][4][10]
7. (uncommon) To move again.^[7][3][10]
8. (pronominal, rimuoversi) To desist from an idea or a conviction.^[10][4][5]

Word family

• rimosso
• rimozione
• rimovibile
• rimovitore

Related words

• muovere
• remoto
• Latin removeō

Usage notes

Rimuovere is conjugated like muovere: past historic rimossi, past participle rimosso.^[3][1] In the old language the diphthong could stay in unstressed forms and be missing in stressed ones.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 16, 481
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
5. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
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 c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse