scorso

Forms

scorso (feminine scorsa, masculine plural scorsi, feminine plural scorse)^[1] Old Italian also wrote scorzo.^[2]

Etymology

It is the past participle of scorrere (“to run, to flow; to pass”), used as an adjective and a noun.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} According to the LEI and Wiktionary, it is inherited from Latin excursus (“run out; a sally”), the perfect passive participle of excurrō (“to run out”), formed ex- and currō (“to run”).^[8][1][9] The same participle continues in French écours, recorded in 1458.^[8] The learned excursus, a digression, is the same Latin word, which spread as a term of philology from the Germanic languages.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the Italian translation of Palladius, around 1340, where scorso means “gone by, passed”.^[3] The LEI has an earlier Old Tuscan noun scorso, “execution of a sentence”, in a translation of Valerius Maximus of about 1336.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the participle had wider senses: Palladius warns against grapes “too far gone in ripeness” (troppo scorse di maturezza), and in Giovanni Villani the scorso e corrotto volgare is the debased common speech.^[10] The time sense, “last”, is the commonest today: Manzoni writes l'anno scorso, non avanzò nulla, “last year nothing was left over”.^[2][10]

As a noun scorso meant a rash word (scorso di lingua, in a 14th-century translation of Saint Gregory), and, from 1573–1574 an error made through haste or distraction.^[3][8] The LEI records further senses: a current of water (1550), licence or loose morals (Davanzati, before 1606), an outburst of feeling (Bartoli, 1663), a digression (Salvini, before 1729) and a moral fault (Gioberti, 1847).^[8] Scorso di penna, a slip of the pen, runs from Vincenzio Borghini to Carducci, and scorso di memoria from 1847.^[8] The feminine noun scorsa, a quick look or a quick trip, is recorded from the 17th century.^[11]

Timeline

• About 1336 – The noun scorso appears in a translation of Valerius Maximus.^[8]
• About 1340 – The Palladius translation uses the participle for “passed”.^[3]
• 14th century – Scorso di lingua, a rash word, in a translation of Saint Gregory.^[8]
• 1573–1574 – The noun means a slip, in the Annotazioni to the Decameron.^[3]
• Before 1580 – Vincenzio Borghini has scorso di penna.^[8]
• 1847 – Gioberti has scorso di memoria.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. last, of the period just before the present: Ci siamo visti martedì scorso. L'anno scorso is last year.^{[12][5][6][1]}
2. (literary) Past, bygone, trascorso.^[5][7][13]

Noun

1. (uncommon) A slip, an error made through haste or inattention: uno scorso di penna.^{[12][5][7][1]}
2. (archaic) Licence, excess.^[5][13]

Word family

• scorsa

Related words

• scorrere
• trascorso
• excursus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 22, 52
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3419
12. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli