sentenza

Forms

sentenza f (plural sentenze)^[1] The older form is Old Italian sentenzia, still marked as archaic in the modern dictionaries.^[2][3][4] The GDLI also lists the old forms scentènzia, sentanza, sentència, sentènsa and sentènsia.^[5]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin sententia (“opinion, judgement; maxim”), from sentiō (“to perceive; to think, judge”).^[2][6][7][1] In Latin the noun had become a term of the lawyers and the grammarians, and the Italian word took it over in those uses.^[8][5] The same Latin word gave the learned French sentence and Spanish sentencia.^[6]

Leumann takes the Latin noun from *sentientia, built on the present participle, with the first /i/ lost by dissimilation, but it may also be a remnant of a PIE root aorist.^[9][10][1] The Latin verb goes back to a PIE verb meaning “to notice”, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European *sént-i- or *snt-ie/o-.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Ugieri Apugliese, in the first half of the 13th century, with the sense “opinion, view”: Ad ogni cosa do sentenza (“I give my opinion on everything”).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense, a judge's decision on a case, is recorded in 1291 in the form sentenzia.^[2] The DEI notes the sense “condemnation” in Iacopone.^[8] From the 14th century it also records the senses “brief saying” and “meaning, opinion”.^[8] The sense “maxim, saying expressing a moral principle” is dated before 1406, in Francesco da Buti.^[2] Dante used the word for the literal meaning of a text, as against its allegory.^[11][7]

In medieval scholastic philosophy a sentenza was the formula in which a master summed up an author's opinion, and the plural named collections of such statements drawn from Scripture and the Fathers.^[12][7] The best known are the four books of Peter Lombard, the standard theology textbook of the 13th and 14th centuries.^[12][7] Manzoni's Ai posteri l'ardua sentenza (“To posterity the hard judgement”) uses the word for a final judgement on a question.^[3][4] Today the legal sense is the main one, and the sense “opinion” is literary.^[11][4]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – Ugieri Apugliese uses sentenza for “opinion”.^[2][5]
• 1200s – Sentenziare is first recorded.^[6]
• 1291 – Sentenzia is recorded for a judge's decision.^[2]
• Before 1406 – Francesco da Buti uses sentenzia for a maxim.^[2]
• 1400s – Sentenzioso is first recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) A judgment, verdict, ruling: the decision by which a judge settles a civil or criminal case in whole or in part: la sentenza di appello è attesa a marzo.^{[7][3][11][1]}
2. (law) The written document that records such a decision.^[7][3]
3. A maxim, a short and pointed saying, often of moral content: un libro di sentenze latine.^{[7][11][13][1]}
4. A judgement pronounced on a question by someone with authority: la sentenza di Dio, the Last Judgement.^[7][3][14]
5. (literary) An opinion or view.^{[7][11][13][1]}
6. (literary) A thesis or doctrine: secondo la sentenza di Platone (Dante).^[7][11][4]
7. (philosophy) In medieval scholasticism, the statement of a thesis or of an author's view, and in the plural a systematic collection of such statements for teaching.^[7][3][12]
8. (obsolete) The meaning or sense of a text.^[7][11][13]

Word family

• sentenziare
• sentenzioso
• sentenziale
• sentenziario

Related words

• sentire
• Latin sententia
• French sentence

Usage notes

Sputare sentenze means to hand out unasked-for judgements with a show of authority.^[13][4][14] The proverb tante teste, tante sentenze renders the Latin quot capita tot sententiae.^[11][12] Tommaseo–Bellini record È meglio un magro accordo che una grassa sentenza, that a poor settlement is better than a rich judgement, since a lawsuit often costs more than the thing at stake.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3455
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET