rubare

Forms

rubare (first-person singular present rùbo, first-person singular past historic rubài, past participle rubàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old and variant forms are Old Italian robare, Old Italian robbare and rubbare.^[2][1] Northern texts also have Old Italian raubare.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Proto-West Germanic *raubōn (“to plunder, rob”), a verb formed from *rauba (“booty; clothes taken as booty”), the source of roba.^[4][5][6][7] Wiktionary gives Late Latin raubāre as the intermediate stage.^[1] Devoto took it from a Gothic verb and argued that it came into Italian late, since an earlier loan would have softened /b/ to /v/, but before the Carolingian period, because it kept the sense “plunder” and not the Frankish sense “goods, stuff”.^[8][5][9] DELI adds that the /b/ is the main difficulty of the etymology, and Meyer-Lübke found Braune's derivation from Lombardic *rūbōn doubtful in sound and unnecessary.^[5][10]

The same Germanic verb gave Old French rober, Old Occitan raubar, Catalan robar, Spanish robar and Portuguese roubar, and Old High German roubōn, the ancestor of German rauben.^[4][10][11] derubare comes instead from French dérober, the French verb with the prefix dé-.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records have the old form robare: Bono Giamboni, before 1292, uses it absolutely for committing a theft, and Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294, for taking by force or by stealth what belongs to others.^[5][6] The form rubare appears in Giordano da Pisa's sermons of 1305–1306.^[5] The TLIO's first example is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian distinguished involare, to take away by cunning, from rubare, to take away by force, as Mengaldo showed in 1961.^[5] Old texts also use the verb for plundering a place, for robbing travellers on the roads (rubare le strade) and ships at sea (rubare il mare), and for carrying off a woman.^[3] Figurative senses followed: rubare il cuore “to make someone fall in love” is already Old Italian, and in modern Italian one can steal someone's time, an idea or a job.^[3][6][12]

In music tempo rubato (from 1804) is time played with some freedom for expressive effect.^[5] Derivatives include ruba “plunder” (late 13th century), which now survives only in andare a ruba “to sell like hot cakes”, rubacchiare (1518–1525, Firenzuola), rubacuori (before 1527, Machiavelli) and rubamazzo, a card game (1959).^[5][4]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses robare for committing a theft.^[5]
• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses robare for taking what belongs to others.^[5][6]
• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa uses the form rubare.^[5]
• Before 1527 – Rubacuori “heartbreaker” in Machiavelli.^[5]
• 1804 – Rubato is recorded as a musical term.^[5]
• 1959 – Rubamazzo is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To steal: to take by stealth or by force what belongs to someone else: Gli hanno rubato la bicicletta davanti alla scuola.^{[6][9][12][1]}
2. (intransitive) To commit a theft: Lo hanno arrestato mentre rubava in un negozio.^[6][9][7][1]
3. To cheat on price, weight or measure: rubare sul peso.^[6][9]
4. (figurative) To take a person away from someone, winning their love: Ha rubato la ragazza al fratello.^[6][12][13]
5. (figurative) To take up someone's time: Non voglio rubarti troppo tempo.^[6][12]
6. (figurative) To pass off as one's own: Gli ha rubato l'idea per il romanzo.^[6][12][13]
7. (figurative) To obtain by cunning: È riuscito a rubarle il segreto.^[6][12][13]
8. (sports) To win undeservedly, or to take the ball from an opponent.^[14][12]

Word family

• ruba
• rubacchiare
• rubacuori
• rubamazzo
• rubato
• ruberia
• rubagalline
• rubabandiera
• rubatore

Related words

• derubare
• rubamento
• roba
• French dérober
• German rauben

Usage notes

The person robbed is introduced with a (rubare qualcosa a qualcuno), and robbing a person of something is derubare.^[9][7][13] A proverb says a rubar poco si va in galera, a rubar tanto si fa carriera “steal a little and you go to jail, steal a lot and you make a career”.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
4. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana