saporoso

Forms

saporoso (feminine saporosa, masculine plural saporosi, feminine plural saporose)^[1] Old forms include savoroso and saproso.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin sapōrōsus (“tasty”), formed from Latin sapor (“taste, flavour”), the source of sapore, with the suffix -ōsus (“full of”).^[4][1][5][6] The same Latin adjective gave French savoureux, Old Occitan sabros, Catalan saborós, Spanish sabroso and Portuguese saboroso.^[7][8]

Sapor is formed from the verb sapiō (“to taste; to be wise”), the source of sapere, with the suffix -or.^[9][1][10] De Vaan derives sapiō from Proto-Indo-European *sh₁p-i- (“to notice”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is from the late 12th century.^[11][6][4] DELI places it in the Ritmo di S. Alessio, with the sense “having a pleasant taste”; the GDLI quotes the Ritmo cassinese, Abete bidande cuscì amorose / como queste nostre saporose? (“have you food as lovely as these tasty ones of ours?”).^[11][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries the word was used of food and fruit.^[2] Iacopone da Todi has fruit saporoso nel gustare, “tasty to the palate”, and the form with -v- was common.^[2] Dante writes in the Purgatorio that the first age fé savorose con fame le ghiande (“made acorns tasty through hunger”), and Folgore da San Gimignano and Boccaccio have savorose fruit and savorosi wines.^[2][12]

A figurative sense, said of something lively and witty, appears in religious prose (souls saporosi di sale divino) and in Bembo, who speaks of parole più saporose made sweeter by a girl's beauty.^[12][13] Tommaseo–Bellini notes that the word was less common than saporito but could say more.^[12] Today it is an uncommon word, used of rich food and of a lively story or speaker.^[5][14][6]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – First record, in a rhythmic poem.^[11][6][2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the form savorose in the Purgatorio.^[2][12]
• 16th century – Bembo uses the word figuratively of words.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of flavour (sapore), tasty, with a strong and pleasant taste: un brodo saporoso.^{[6][5][14][3]}
2. (figurative, literary) Lively, witty, full of brio: said of a story, a scene or a speaker who tells things well: un saporoso racconto di viaggio.^{[6][14][3][15]}

Word family

• saporosità
• saporosamente

Related words

• sapore
• saporito
• sapere
• Latin sapor

Usage notes

The word is uncommon; saporito is the usual adjective.^[5][14][16] The s between vowels may be pronounced voiceless or voiced.^[16][14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 17, 564
3. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli