risanare

Forms

risanare (first-person singular present risàno, first-person singular past historic risanài, past participle risanàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Late Latin resānāre (“to make healthy again”), a verb of the 4th or 5th century found in Martianus Capella.^[2][3][4] The Latin verb is formed with re- (“again”) on sānāre (“to heal”).^[2][5][6] Because the Latin word is isolated and left no derivatives, DELI asks whether the Italian verb was not rather formed in Italian, from Italian ri- + sanare, and Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[2][1] Wiktionary compares Spanish resanar.^[1]

The Latin verb comes from sānus (“healthy”), from Proto-Italic *sāno-.^[7] De Vaan calls the reconstruction Proto-Indo-European *seh₂-no- purely mechanical, and he suggests either the root *seh₂- (“to tie”), first meaning something in place and in order, or the root of satis (“enough”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the verb before 1294, in the sense “to bring back to reason, make sane of mind”.^[8] DELI's first record is in Dante, who died in 1321, with the sense “to make healthy again”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From healing the body the verb passed to the mind: Petrarch's line Una man sola mi risana e punge (“a single hand heals me and pierces me”) is about the pains of love.^[9][10] Tommaseo also records the sense “to bring something back to its former wholeness”.^[9] The intransitive use, “to recover one's health”, is recorded in Bembo in 1505.^[2]

Before 1585 Luigi Groto used risanare for making a place healthy or habitable.^[2] This sense led to the modern ones: reclaiming marshes and malarial land, and restoring run-down districts and buildings.^[8][5][10] The figurative “to put right, reorganize” is recorded in 1900, and today the verb is common of putting a company's or a state's finances back in order.^[2][8][4]

Timeline

• Before 1294 – Risanare is recorded in the sense “to make sane of mind”.^[8]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for “to make healthy again”.^[2]
• 1505 – Pietro Bembo uses the intransitive “to recover” and risanabile.^[2]
• Before 1547 – Bembo uses risanamento.^[2]
• Before 1585 – Luigi Groto uses it for “to make healthy or habitable”.^[2]
• 1745 – Risanatore is recorded by Bergantini.^[2]
• 1900 – Arlìa records the figurative “to put right, reorganize”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To heal, cure, restore to health: Il clima di montagna lo ha risanato.^[8][5][1]
2. (transitive) To bring back to reason or to a sound state of mind.^[8][10]
3. (figurative, literary) To free from pain and sorrow.^[8][5]
4. (transitive) To reclaim land, make an unhealthy place healthy by drainage and similar work: risanare una palude.^[8][5][6]
5. (transitive) To restore a run-down district, polluted area or unsafe building.^[8][5][4]
6. (transitive) To put back on a sound footing, especially a company's or a state's finances: Il nuovo direttore ha risanato i conti della ditta.^[8][6][4][1]
7. (transitive) To repair an object, such as a barrel or a boat.^[8][11]
8. (intransitive, auxiliary essere) To recover one's health.^[8][4][1]

Word family

• risanabile
• risanamento
• risanatore
• risanato

Related words

• sanare
• sano
• Latin sānō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
10. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli