scemo

Forms

scemo (feminine scema, masculine plural scemi, feminine plural sceme)^[1] Old Italian also had semo, sciemo and scimo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a shortened past participle of scemare (“to diminish”), without the ending ⟨-ato⟩.^[4][5][6][2] Nocentini and Devoto–Oli explain the sense “stupid” as figurative: one who is lacking.^[5][6]

The verb comes from Vulgar Latin *exsēmāre, from ex- and Late Latin sēmus (“half, halved”), from Latin sēmis (“half”): properly “to take away half”.^[4][1] Nocentini starts from a form *semāre without the prefix;^[5][7] DEI starts from Late Latin sēmāre (“to halve”), found in glosses.^[5][7] Old French semer and Old Occitan semar are related.^[5][7] REW, Körting and Prati derive the adjective directly from the Latin adjective “reduced”, which REW also finds in Logudorese Sardinian sem, Friulian sem, Catalan sem (“incomplete”) and sem (“diminished, defective”).^[8][3][9] DELI notes that semus in the sense “not full” is recorded in the Medieval Latin of Sacile in the 13th century.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Dante (1310–1313), in the sense “not full, not whole”.^[4] In the Inferno Dante notices that the mountainside is hollowed out (m'accorsi che 'l monte era scemo).^[10][6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian scemo described a half-empty barrel or flask, a waning moon, a person lacking something (Dante writes that Virgil had left them scemi di sé, bereft of himself), and a gaunt face.^[2][10][11] As a noun it meant a decrease or a lack: Giovanni Villani reckons the price of grain “with all the scemo of the dead”.^[11]

Boccaccio (1353) has the sense “lacking in judgement”, said of a person, and Prati cites Berni for “imbecile”.^[4][9] In architecture an arco scemo is a segmental arch, recorded from 1550.^[4][12] The sense “stupid” is now the usual one; the old senses survive in Tuscan and literary use.^[12][10] The derivative scemenza “silly thing” was a word of Rome and the south that spread into the common language only in the 20th century.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – Medieval Latin semus “not full” is recorded at Sacile.^[4]
• 1310–1313 – Dante uses scemo “not full, hollowed”.^[4]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses it for a person lacking judgement.^[4]
• 1550 – Cosimo Bartoli writes of an arco scemo.^[4]
• 1918 – Panzini records scemenza as a southern word.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. stupid, silly, slow-witted: Non sono mica così scemo da credergli.^[10][6][13]
2. (colloquial, affectionate) Silly, said teasingly to someone close: Ma dai, scemo, stavo scherzando!^[10][6][12]
3. Of things: foolish, inane: un programma scemo.^[10][6][13]
4. (Tuscan, literary) Not full, not whole: un fiasco scemo; of the moon, waning.^[10][12][14]
5. (architecture) Arco scemo: a segmental arch.^[10][12]

Noun

1. A fool, an idiot: Smettila di fare lo scemo.^[12][13][14]
2. (archaic) A decrease or lack; the missing part of something.^[6][13][12]

Word family

• scemenza
• scemata
• scemaggine
• scemamente

Related words

• scemare
• semi-
• Latin semis

Usage notes

Lo scemo del villaggio is the village idiot;^[12][14] fare lo scemo means to play the fool, and also to flirt.^[12][14] A scemo di guerra is a man left mentally disturbed by war.^[10][14]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3381
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana