ristare

Forms

ristare (first-person singular present (with syntactic gemination after the verb) ristò, first-person singular past historic ristétti or (traditional) ristètti, past participle ristàto, first-person singular future ristarò, first-person singular subjunctive ristìa, first-person singular imperfect subjunctive ristéssi, second-person singular imperative ristài or ristà', auxiliary èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is the same word as restare, with the prefix changed to the commoner Italian form ri-.^[2][3][4] Nocentini treats both as learned words of the 13th century.^[5] restare is borrowed from Latin restāre (“to stay behind, stop; remain”).^[5][2] Treccani instead calls it the popular doublet of restare.^[6][7]

The Latin verb is a compound of stō (“to stand; stay”) with the prefix re-, “back” or “again”.^[2][5][1] Devoto gives its first sense as “to be left behind”.^[8] The same Latin verb gave French rester and Spanish restar.^[5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the Novellino, from the late 13th century, with the sense “to stop for a while, pause”.^[2] In that text a group of travellers, seeing that their host did not rise to greet them, stopped and asked him why (e que’ ristettero).^[10] Zingarelli dates the word earlier, to before 1250.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the early 14th century the verb meant to stop where one was, often suddenly: Dante writes Veggendoci calar, ciascun ristette (“seeing us come down, each one stopped”), and Dino Compagni of a judge who ristette per cammino, stopped on his way.^[10] It was used with the reflexive particle as well, as in Dante's E ’l dolce duca meco si ristette (“and the gentle guide stopped with me”).^[7][11]

From Boccaccio on, the verb also meant to cease doing something, with di or da and an infinitive: il buono uomo non era ancora ristato di picchiare (“the good man had not yet stopped knocking”).^[2][7][12] Zingarelli records two old senses that have died out, “to settle” and “to resist”.^[4] The phrase senza ristare means “without stopping, without delay”.^[3][6][11]

Later writers kept the verb as a literary word: Leopardi, Manzoni and Carducci used it, and Bilenchi still did in the 20th century.^[3][6][12]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses ristare for stopping a while.^[2][10]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses ristette and si ristette in the Commedia.^[10][7]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses the verb for ceasing to do something.^[2]
• 1959 – The compound of ri- and stare, “to stay again”, is first recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (literary) To stop, pause, halt for a while; also pronominal, ristarsi: Il viandante ristette davanti alla porta.^{[3][12][13][4][6]}
2. (figurative, literary) To cease or desist from doing something, with da or di and an infinitive: Non ristava dal chiedere notizie.^{[3][12][4][6]}

Word family

• ristanza
• ristata

Related words

• restare
• stare
• arrestare
• Latin restō

Usage notes

The phrase senza ristare means without a pause or delay.^[3][6] The present tense is ristò, ristài, ristà and the imperative ristà, rista’ or ristài; otherwise the verb is conjugated like stare, with essere.^[12][4] A separate compound of ri- and stare, “to stay again, to be again”, is recorded from 1959.^[3][6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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)
7. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
12. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse