rione

Forms

rione m (plural rioni)^[1] An old form is Old Italian reione.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin regiō (“direction, line; district, region”), from its accusative form, through Vulgar Latin *ri(ji)one(m).^[3][4][5][1] It is the only popular survival of the Latin word, whose learned doublet is regione.^[3][4][6][1]

The /g/ before a front vowel was palatalised and then lost entirely, and the ending was taken for the augmentative suffix -one, which made the word masculine, unlike the feminine learned word.^[7][8] Prati explains that the word came to mean, in the early Middle Ages, each of the parts into which Rome was divided.^[8] Related outcomes are Sicilian rijuni,^[1] Corsican arechione (“landed property”) and Old French royon.^[9][10]

The Latin noun is formed from regō (“to direct, guide, govern”) with the suffix -iō.^[11][1] Devoto takes its first meaning to be a straight line of direction, later applied to an exactly bounded area.^[7] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to stretch, direct”), the root of Ancient Greek ὀρέγω (orégō, “to stretch”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Giovanni Villani's chronicle, before 1348, where it is one of the parts into which Rome was divided: the Romans chose cinquantadue buoni uomini, chiamati quattro per rione (“fifty-two good men, four for each district”) to guard the people.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word was used mostly of Rome, but also of the districts of Orvieto and Pesaro.^[10][8] The Roman chronicle of the Anonimo romano places a man's birth in the rione della Regola, and later writers such as Ramusio and Daniello Bartoli use rioni for the quarters of other cities.^[2] Davanzati, before 1600, still describes Rome as divided into 14 rioni.^[3][13] In the old communes the word had the value of an administrative division.^[2]

The general sense “quarter of a town” is recorded by Florio in 1598, but DELI notes that it spread rather recently.^[3] Caporione, once the head of a rione, is now a disparaging word for a ringleader.^[8] The adjective rionale is dated 1910 by Nocentini and 1921 by DELI.^[4][3] English used rioni in 1752; the OED's first record is from 1927.^[14]

Timeline

• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani writes of the rioni of Rome.^[3][5]
• 1598 – Florio records the general sense “quarter of a town”.^[3]
• Before 1600 – Davanzati speaks of the 14 rioni of Rome.^[3]
• 1752 – The plural rioni appears in English.^[14]
• 1910 – The adjective rionale is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A quarter or neighbourhood of a town: Abita in un rione vicino alla stazione.^[5][15][16]
2. Each of the twenty-two historic districts of central Rome, linked to the fourteen regiones into which Augustus divided the city.^[15][17][6]

Word family

• rionale
• caporione

Related words

• regione
• Latin regiō

Usage notes

In some cities rione is the name of an administrative division, like sestiere and terziere elsewhere.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 621
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 374
8. ^ a b c d Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 842
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3259
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)