scioperare

Forms

scioperare (first-person singular present sciòpero, first-person singular past historic scioperài, past participle scioperàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The older form Old Italian scioprare, with the middle vowel lost, is now obsolete.^[2][3][4] Northern dialects have Emilian sioperèr at Bologna, and Ruzante wrote Venetian scioperè in Paduan in 1533.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *exoperāre (“to stop working”), formed with the privative prefix ex- on operō (“to work”).^[5][6][7][1] Sabatini–Coletti and Treccani take the verb from the noun opera (“work”), with the prefix marking that the work stops.^[8][9]

The LEI points out that the deponent Late Latin exoperor is recorded in the Greek–Latin glosses, so the spoken form need not be reconstructed as Meyer-Lübke did.^[4][10] Treccani instead keeps that gloss word apart, as a compound in which the prefix only strengthens the verb.^[9] The verb has no descendants outside Italo-Romance.^[4] Devoto took it as drawn from the participle scioperato.^[11]

The noun sciopero is a deverbal noun of the verb, and the phrase for a hunger strike copies the English hunger strike.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb first appears in Florentine texts of the 1280s and 1290s, in the reflexive, meaning “to leave off one's work”.^[5][12] A Florentine text has quando si scioperasse da la sua bottega, “when he should stay away from his shop”.^[13][12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb meant to stop working, or, used transitively, to keep someone from work, to distract or bother them: Marco Polo and Sacchetti use it so.^[4][12] The transitive sense lasted until the 19th century, and Tuscany kept the proverb Chi mi dà a fare mi sciopera, “whoever gives me work keeps me from working”.^[5][14] The participle scioperato meant “without occupation” in Boccaccio (1353) and later “idle, shiftless”.^[5]

From the second half of the 19th century the old sense of idleness gave way to the political one.^[4] Arcangeli found the noun sciopero moving from “lack of work” to “organised stoppage” in the Civiltà Cattolica between 1855 and 1867, and Massimo d'Azeglio, who died in 1866, already uses verb and noun for a strike.^[4][5] Tommaseo noted in 1873 that the word was “unfortunately alive” among workers who stop to force higher wages.^[5] Many kinds of strike were named in the 20th century: diritto di sciopero (1908), sciopero bianco (1923), sciopero a singhiozzo (1950).^[5] The jocular sense “to idle, do nothing” is recorded from about 1704.^[4][7]

Timeline

• c. 1284 – Florentine texts use scioperarsi, “to leave off work”.^[5]
• Early 14th century – Marco Polo uses the verb in the sense “to distract from work”.^[4]
• 1353 – Boccaccio uses scioperato, “without occupation”.^[5]
• 1612 – Sciopro, “not working”, appears in Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger.^[5]
• c. 1704 – Lorenzo Bellini uses the verb for “to pass the time doing nothing”.^[4]
• Before 1866 – Massimo d'Azeglio uses scioperare and sciopero for a strike.^[5]
• 1875 – Scioperante, “striker”, is recorded.^[5][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To strike, to go on strike, to take part in a sciopero: Lunedì scioperano i controllori di volo.^{[7][15][8][1]}
2. (intransitive, jocular) To stay idle, to refuse to do something.^[7][15][16]
3. (transitive, obsolete) To distract someone from their work.^[7][2][3][1]
4. (pronominal, obsolete) scioperarsi: to break off one's work.^[2][3][16]

Word family

• sciopero
• scioperante
• scioperato
• scioperataggine

Related words

• operare
• opera
• Latin operor

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 22, 426
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 18
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b 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 Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli