riposto

Forms

riposto (feminine riposta, masculine plural riposti, feminine plural riposte)^[1] Old forms include reposto and reposito.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Italian riporre (“to put back, put away”): its past participle, used as an adjective and, in the south, as a noun.^[4][5][6][7] Nocentini and Devoto–Oli trace the participle to the Latin repositus of repōnō (“to put back, store away”), and Wiktionary to its syncopated variant repostus.^[5][8][1][9] The Latin participle already meant “remote, out-of-the-way” in Virgil, of distant lands.^[10]

Meyer-Lübke groups the word with other Romance derivatives of the Latin verb that name a store: Catalan rebost (“pantry”) (whence Spanish reposte) and Spanish repuesto.^[11] The words ripostiglio and ripostaglia came separately, from Old French repostail (“container”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record of the adjective, “secluded, remote”, is in Ugurgieri, in the first half of the 14th century.^[4] The sense “hidden” follows in G. Villani, before 1348.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Petrarch's line luoghi da sospirar riposti e fidi (“places sheltered and safe for sighing”) is the literary model for the adjective.^[8][6][7] From a secluded place the sense moved to what is kept secret or understood by few: i più riposti pensieri, a hidden meaning in a poem.^[8][12] The old phrase in riposto meant “in secret”.^[12]

The noun, a store-room, appears as reposto in Masuccio Salernitano in 1476, for a place to keep fodder.^[4][3] In Naples it came to mean a pastry shop or ice-cream parlour, recorded by Zingarelli in 1942, and the sense “food store” entered the dictionaries in 1959.^[4] In the navy and merchant marine a riposto is the pantry next to the officers' mess.^[8][7]

Timeline

• First half of the 14th century – Ugurgieri uses riposto “secluded”.^[4]
• Before 1348 – G. Villani uses it for “hidden”.^[4]
• 1476 – the noun reposto, a store, in Masuccio Salernitano.^[4]
• 1942 – Zingarelli records the Neapolitan sense “pastry shop, ice-cream parlour”.^[4]
• 1959 – the southern sense “food store” is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) Out of the way, secluded, sheltered: una casa riposta tra i castagni.^{[13][8][7][12]}
2. (figurative) secret, hidden, known to few: le sue intenzioni più riposte.^{[13][8][6][1]}

Noun

1. (Southern Italy) A store-room for food or tableware; a pantry, dispensa.^{[13][8][6][7]}
2. (nautical) On a ship, the pantry between the galley and the mess rooms, where the crockery is kept.^[8][12][7]

Word family

• riposteria
• ripostamente

Related words

• riporre
• Latin repositus

Usage notes

Riposto is also the past participle of riporre in all its senses (la biancheria riposta nell'armadio).^[13][6][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 16, 705
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET