sapore

Forms

sapore m (plural sapori)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sapor (“taste, flavour”), from the accusative sapōrem.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun is formed from sapiō (“to taste; to be wise”) with the suffix -or.^[3][5][1] The same word is French saveur, Occitan sabor, Catalan sabor, Spanish sabor and Portuguese sabor, and it is found in all the Romance languages except Romanian.^[3][6][7]

De Vaan traces sapiō to Proto-Italic *sap-i- and Proto-Indo-European *sh₁p- (“to notice”).^[8] The same verb gave sapere, “to know” and “to taste of”.^[3][9]

Old Italian also had the form savore, with the voicing of the consonant between vowels, used by Guittone and Dante.^[7][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Bono Giamboni's Vizi e virtù, before 1292, in the sense of the sensation produced on the organs of taste: at a dinner of many dishes, he writes, the stomach takes pleasure in questo sapore e in quell'altro.^[2][4][12]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian had many forms: sabore, saboro, sapure, savore and savoro.^[11] Savore also became the name of a kind of sauce, and survives as such in dialect;^[13][14][15] Devoto–Oli records it as archaic and regional.^[13][14][15] Dante asks Crassus di che sapore è l'oro? (“what does gold taste like?”) in the Paradiso.^[11]

The figurative sense of the particular tone or character of an expression is recorded in Pallavicino in 1662.^[2] In the plural the word names aromatic herbs used in cooking.^[4][14] In particle physics sapore translates the English “flavour”, the quantum number distinguishing the types of quark.^[4][14][15]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni has sapore.^[2]
• 13th century – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the form savore.^[11][7]
• Before 1531 – Berni uses saporetto for a sauce.^[7]
• 1662 – Sforza Pallavicino uses the word for the tone of an expression.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. taste, flavour: the sensation produced by a substance on the organs of taste, and the property of a substance that produces it: un sapore di fumo.^[4][14][16]
2. (figurative) The tone or character of an expression, a work or a situation: una poesia dal sapore malinconico.^[4][14][17]
3. (figurative) Liveliness, the power to interest or attract: dare sapore a qualcosa, to make it interesting.^[4][16][15]
4. (in the plural) Aromatic herbs used in cooking.^[4][14][17]
5. (Tuscany) A sauce of pounded walnuts, soaked bread and spices; any aromatic sauce.^[15][14]
6. (physics) Flavour, the quantum number distinguishing the kinds of quark, and each of the six kinds.^[4][14][15]

Word family

• saporire
• saporito
• saporoso
• saporosità
• assaporare
• dissapore
• insapore
• insaporire
• saporare
• saporevole

Related words

• sapere
• savore
• Latin sapor
• French saveur

Usage notes

Savore is an archaic or regional form.^[14][16][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3337
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 873
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 17, 559
13. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana