ripascere

Forms

ripascere (first-person singular present ripàsco, first-person singular past historic ripascétti or (traditional) ripascètti or ripascéi, past participle ripasciùto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old variant is rapascere.^[2][3]

Etymology

According to GDLI it is a learned word: it is borrowed from Late Latin repascere (“to feed in turn”), formed re- and pāscō (“to feed, pasture”).^[2] The TLIO and GRADIT also derive it from the Late Latin verb, and Tommaseo finds it in Paulinus of Nola.^[3][4][5] Wiktionary and Gabrielli analyse it instead as from Italian ri- + pascere.^[1][6]

Körting puts it with French repaître and its noun French repas, a meal.^[7] GDLI dates the French verb to 1180, and the TLIO thinks Old French repaistre (“to nourish”) may have influenced the sense “to feed as well”.^[2][3]

The simple Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *pāske/o- and to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-s- (“to protect, herd”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Bono Giamboni's Trattato, Florentine, before 1292.^[3][4] There the sheep crop the grass in such a way that it always grows back, so that it may be rapasciute, grazed again.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian also used it for feeding people: Bencivenni says that Christ had preached and fed the crowds, ripasciute le genti.^[2][5] A commentary on the Lord's Prayer has the twelve Apostles who “fed and nourished the whole world”, a use Tommaseo compares with French.^[5] The TLIO also records a figurative sense, nourishing in the faith.^[3] Later writers used it for rewarding someone, and Sercambi with an obscene allusion.^[2]

Tommaseo gives the pastoral sense, leading the flocks out in the evening to graze again.^[5][2] GRADIT marks the verb as obsolete.^[4] Its derivative ripascimento (1987) is a term of geology: the building up of a beach by material the rivers and the sea carry along the coast.^[4]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses rapasciute in his Trattato.^[3][4]
• 1987 – Ripascimento is first recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic, literary) Of animals, to graze again, to crop the grass again; also intransitive.^[2][4][1]
2. (archaic) To feed or nourish again; also figurative and reflexive, ripascersi: Il vecchio si ripasceva di ricordi lontani.^[6][3][4]
3. (obsolete) To feed people, to refresh them.^[3][2]

Word family

• ripascimento

Related words

• pascere
• Latin pāscō
• French repaître

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 16, 643
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill