ruggire

Forms

ruggire (first-person singular present ruggìsco, first-person singular past historic ruggìi, past participle ruggìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian roggire, Old Italian ruçir and ruzir.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rūgīre (“to roar”), a verb used above all, though not only, of lions.^[3][4][5][1] Devoto explains the double ⟨gg⟩ as spread from the forms stressed on the stem, as in fuggire.^[6]

The same verb is Old French ruir, Occitan rugir, Portuguese rugir and Romanian rugi, and Nocentini calls it pan-Romance.^[4][7] The DÉRom, finding no Sardinian or Romanian cognate it accepts, reconstructs the Proto-Romance verb only for Italo-Western Romance.^[8]

The Latin verb is recorded only from Suetonius on.^[9][8] De Vaan connects it with a PIE root Proto-Indo-European *(H)ru- (“to roar”), extended with different consonants in the different branches, and compares Ancient Greek ὠρυγή (ōrugḗ, “noise, roaring”); given the late record, he thinks it may have been influenced by mūgiō (“to low”).^[9] DELI and Nocentini see an imitative base ⟨ru-⟩ for animal noises, which may have arisen independently in several languages, and Nocentini derives rumore from it too.^[3][4]

The variants rugghiare and rugliare were formed after mugghiare and mugliare.^[10][11][7] DEI explains Trentino brùger and French bruire by a crossing with the verb that gave bramire.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Milanese vernacular poems of Bonvesin da la Riva, from the late 13th century, with the sense of a large animal, especially the lion, giving its hoarse, loud and threatening cry.^[2] DELI's earliest date is Dante's, 1313–1319, for things that rumble with a roar, and it dates the lion's roar to before 1342, in Domenico Cavalca.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old Italian the verb passed from lions to people uttering harsh, inarticulate shouts and to natural forces and objects that make a crashing noise.^[2] Petrarch compares Death to an angry sky that thunders or a lion that roars (come irato ciel tona o leon rugge).^[12] The verb could also be used of people in a fury from the 14th century, and as a transitive verb, “to bellow out” words, from Mazzini, before 1872.^[3] An obsolete sense was the rumbling of the bowels.^[13]

In the 15th century Poliziano used it loosely of the wild boar.^[10] In literary use it also describes a passion that seethes within, as in Foscolo's quello spirto guerrier ch'entro mi rugge (“that warlike spirit that roars within me”).^[5][14]

The noun ruggito, first as the lion's voice in the 14th century, is a learned borrowing of Latin rugītus.^[3][4] The participle ruggente gave anni ruggenti, the 1920s, after English “roaring twenties”;^[3] Migliorini used it in the Corriere della Sera in 1962.^[3]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Bonvesin da la Riva uses the verb in his Milanese poems.^[2]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses it of things that roar.^[3]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses it of the lion.^[3]
• 14th century – Cicerchia uses it of people shouting horribly.^[3]
• 1350–1375 – Ruggente appears in a translation of Guido delle Colonne.^[3]
• Before 1872 – Mazzini uses it transitively, “to bellow out”.^[3]
• 1962 – Migliorini writes of the anni ruggenti.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) Of a lion or other big cat or wild beast: to roar.^{[5][15][16][14]}
2. (intransitive, figurative) Of a person: to shout or bellow in rage, despair or pain: Ruggiva di dolore e nessuno riusciva a calmarlo.^[5][15][16]
3. (intransitive) Of the sea, the wind, fire or other natural forces: to make a loud, threatening noise: Tutta la notte il vento ruggì tra i pini.^[5][16][14]
4. (intransitive, figurative, literary) Of a passion or feeling: to seethe violently within someone.^[5][14][17]
5. (transitive, figurative) To bellow out words angrily: ruggì un ordine ai soldati.^[5][15][14]
6. (obsolete) Of the bowels: to rumble.^[13]

Word family

• ruggito
• ruggente

Related words

• rugghiare
• rugliare
• Latin rūgiō

Usage notes

Besides the regular present ruggisco, ruggisce, ruggiscono, literary Italian has rugge and ruggono, from a variant infinitive ruggere.^{[15][16][13][14]}

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ 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
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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 381
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3295
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 859
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 17, 222
13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
16. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli