senza

Forms

senza^[1] The old forms include Old Italian sanza, used by Dante and Boccaccio, and northern forms such as Old Italian sença and Old Italian çença.^[2][3] Before a vowel it may be elided to senz’, as always in senz’altro.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin absentia (“absence”), used in the ablative ⟨absentiā⟩ “in the absence of” as a preposition, with the loss of the first syllable.^[5][6][7][8] The same reduced form survives in Franco-Provençal and in Old Occitan sensa, and Meyer-Lübke adds Engadine ⟨sainza⟩ and Old French sanz, the ancestor of French sans.^[3][9] Wiktionary sees a blend of Latin sine (“without”) with the noun.^[1]

The etymology, defended by Meyer-Lübke, Prati, Battisti–Alessio and Rohlfs, was rejected by Walther von Wartburg and Joan Corominas.^[3] The LEI answers that they did not know the earliest Italian forms such as ⟨sentia⟩, and that Old Milanese ⟨asensa⟩ and dialect ⟨insensa⟩ point to a prepositional phrase Vulgar Latin *(in) absentia alicuius (“in someone's absence”).^[3] Carlo Salvioni took the Italian forms for borrowings from French, an idea Meyer-Lübke found hard to understand and the LEI rejects for Italian.^[9][3]

The variant ⟨sanza⟩ shows the change of /en/ to /an/ before the stress that is typical of 13th-century Florentine (as in ⟨danari⟩ beside ⟨denari⟩); it began in western Tuscany, reached Florence at the end of the 12th century, and spread from there.^[3] The Latin preposition for “without” itself lives on in Istrian ⟨sina⟩, Old Occitan senes, Spanish sin and Portuguese sem.^[10][9]

The Latin noun is formed from absēns (“absent”), the present participle of absum (“to be away”), from ab (“from”) and sum (“to be”).^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form sentia in a document of Segnoretto da Prato of 1104 (“sentia saputa”, without the knowledge); senza appears in a document from Fabriano in 1186, in the sense “without, lacking”.^[5][7][3]

Semantic evolution

From the 13th century senza and the Florentine sanza are both common: Dante writes “soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto” (we were alone and without any suspicion, Inferno 5).^[4][3] In the 16th century sanza was felt to be a Florentine form and was dropped, by Ariosto among others in the last edition of his poem.^[3]

Besides lack and exclusion, the preposition introduces an infinitive clause (senza dire nulla, without saying anything) and forms set phrases such as senza dubbio and senz’altro.^[7][12][13] In music senza (senza tempo, senza misura) passed into French in 1703, English in 1724 and German in 1732.^[14] In the 20th century it formed nouns: senzatetto “homeless person” (as senza tetto in 1908, written as one word in 1918) and senzadio “atheist; unscrupulous person” (1930).^[5][6]

Timeline

• 1104 – The form sentia appears in a document of Segnoretto da Prato.^[5]
• 1186 – Senza appears in a document from Fabriano.^[5][3]
• 1219 – Senza is recorded at Montieri in western Tuscany.^[3]
• 1703 – The musical senza is recorded in French.^[14]
• 1724 – The musical senza is recorded in English.^[14]
• 1908 – Senza tetto “homeless” is recorded; the compound senzatetto follows in 1918.^[5]
• 1930 – Senza Dio “atheist” is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Preposition

1. without, lacking, introducing what someone or something does not have: un tè senza limone.^[7][12][15]
2. Without, as opposed to con, senza di before a personal pronoun: senza di lei.^[7][16][13]
3. excluding, not counting.^[7][15]
4. Without, of manner or means.^[7]
5. Followed by an infinitive, without doing something: È partito senza salutare nessuno.^[7][12][15]

Adjective

1. (bridge) Played with no trumps.^[7][13]
2. (rowing) Without a cox, in due senza and quattro senza.^[12][16][1]

Word family

• senzatetto
• senzadio

Related words

• assenza
• assente
• Latin absentia
• Latin sine
• French sans

Usage notes

Before a stressed personal pronoun senza usually takes di (senza di me); with nouns it does not.^[12][16][7] Non senza means “with some” by litotes, and senza se e senza ma “without reservations”.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 910
3. ^ 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. 1, 166
4. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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 f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 401
9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3456
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana