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ruolo

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Pronunciation

Forms

ruolo m (plural ruoli)[1] Older forms are rollo, used by Marin Sanudo in 1528, and the Venetian rolo of 1790.[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French rôle, from Late Latin rotulus (“little wheel; roll”).[2][4][5][1] The Latin word meant a rolled sheet of writing, and so a register or list;[2][5][3] French had the sense of a list from the 12th century.[2][5][3] Gabrielli explains the noun as a rolled-up register in which names were written.[6] The Latin noun is a diminutive of rota (“wheel”).[7][8]

The same French word passed into Spanish rol and Portuguese rol.[3][9] The inherited Italian outcome of the Latin word is rotolo, which kept the older sense of a roll.[4][9] Devoto notes that the form with ⟨uo⟩ was aligned with native words such as suolo and duolo.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word first came in as a military and naval term: Marin Sanudo uses rollo in 1528, and in 1555 Lorenzo Gorgieri speaks of those “written in the roll of the soldiers” (descritti nel ruolo de' soldati).[2][3] The first sense was thus a list of persons kept for administrative purposes.[2][10]

Semantic evolution

From the list of soldiers the word spread to any register of names, such as the membership roll of an academy, and in 1811 Stratico records it for the list of sailors on board a ship.[10][3] In law it became the register of cases in the order in which a court hears them (1872, Tommaseo), and in public administration the roll of permanent staff, so that an employee di ruolo holds a permanent post.[2][11][12] Panzini recorded this sense of the grades of civil servants as a neologism in 1918.[3]

The theatrical sense, the part an actor plays, appears in 1880 with Tronconi (DEI has a record of 1883).[2][3] Even earlier, in the 1790s, rolo and ruolo were used figuratively for a function or office, and this sense of a role played in events, or of the behaviour expected of a person in a group, is now the most common one.[2][5][11] The diminutive ruolino was a military term in 1906, and ruolino di marcia came to mean a schedule of tasks with their deadlines.[2]

Timeline

  • 1528 – Marin Sanudo uses the form rollo for a list of soldiers.[2][5]
  • 1555 – Lorenzo Gorgieri writes of il ruolo de' soldati.[2]
  • 1790 – The figurative sense “function, part” is recorded in Venetian rolo.[2]
  • 1797 – Ruolo “function” appears in the Notizie del Mondo.[2]
  • 1872 – Tommaseo records the register of court cases.[2]
  • 1880 – Tronconi uses ruolo for the part of a character.[2]
  • 1906 – The diminutive ruolino appears as a military term.[2][4]
  • 1955 – Ruolino di marcia is recorded in the figurative sense of a schedule.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A register or list of the persons belonging to an organization, an office or the army: È entrato nei ruoli del ministero.[5][13][6]
  2. The permanent staff of an administration, di ruolo means holding a permanent post: Mia sorella è insegnante di ruolo.[13][11][12]
  3. (law) The register of cases listed in the order in which a court is to hear them.[5][11][12]
  4. (taxation) The document listing what each taxpayer owes to a public body.[5][11][13]
  5. The part an actor plays in a play or film, or that a character has in a story: Ha ottenuto il ruolo del cattivo.[5][13][14]
  6. (sport) The position and task of a player in a team.[13][11][14]
  7. role, function: the part a person or thing plays in an event or a process, and the behaviour expected of someone in a social group.[5][14][11]

Word family

  • ruolino
  • arruolare
  • arruolamento
  • preruolo

Usage notes

Gioco di ruolo is a role-playing game, and fuori ruolo is said of an employee on a temporary assignment outside the permanent staff.[5][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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 Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3297
  4. ^ a b c 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  6. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  8. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  12. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  13. ^ 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
  14. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse