seco

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēcum (“with oneself”), formed from Latin sē (“oneself”) + -cum (“with”), with the preposition cum (“with”) placed after the pronoun.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} It belongs with meco, teco, nosco and vosco, formed in the same way.^[6][1]

There was also Old Italian conseco, with the preposition repeated, like Spanish consigo.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the word to 1282, and DELI's first record is in the Novellino, at the end of the 13th century, in the sense “with oneself, near oneself”: the father of Papirius used to take him seco to the Council.^[9][2][10]

Semantic evolution

From “with oneself” the word passed to “to oneself, inwardly”, of thinking or talking to oneself, and was strengthened as seco stesso and seco medesimo, as Dante already has it.^[3][8] It was used for every gender and number, and, without reference to the subject, also for “with him, with her, with them”, as in Petrarch's e 'l mio cor seco, “and my heart with her”.^[11][3] Boccaccio has the pleonastic con seco, and later writers seco lui, seco lei, seco loro.^[8][9][5]

Old dialect forms recorded by the GDLI include ségo, siéco, sigo and zégo.^[10] Today the word is literary or archaic.^[12][4][5]

Timeline

• 1282 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[9]
• End of the 13th century – The Novellino uses seco for “with himself”.^[2]
• Before 1300 – GRADIT's date of first record.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (literary) With oneself, with himself, herself, itself or themselves; along, about one: portava seco una valigia.^{[3][12][4][9]}
2. (literary) To oneself, inwardly, within oneself; among themselves; often seco stesso, seco medesimo.^{[3][12][4][9]}
3. (archaic) With him, with her, with them.^{[3][12][9][5]}

Related words

• meco
• nosco
• teco
• vosco
• sé
• Latin sēcum

Usage notes

Seco is also a form of the verb secare (“I cut”).^[13] The GDLI also lists seco as a variant of secco “dry”.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
5. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
6. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 398
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 904
9. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
10. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 18, 407
11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org