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sito

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Italian has three words sito, all learned borrowings of Latin situs: “place”, “bad smell” and “situated”.[1][2]

sito1 place, site

Pronunciation

Forms

sito m (plural siti)[3]

Etymology

The place is borrowed from Latin situs (“position, site”), a learned borrowing.[1][4][2][3] The Latin noun comes from the past participle of sinō (“to put down; to leave, let”).[1][4][2] Nocentini sees an older meaning “put in a place, settle” behind the verb, compared with Sanskrit क्षेति (kṣéti, “lives, dwells”) and Ancient Greek κτίζω (ktízō, “to found, colonize”).[4] De Vaan derives sinō from Proto-Indo-European *tḱei- (“to build”), with a shift from “let someone dwell” to “put in place”, but the root is disputed.[5] The same Latin noun gave French site and Spanish sitio.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is Dante (before 1321), with the sense “place, locality”;[1][6] Zingarelli dates the word to 1282.[1][6] In the Inferno Dante describes how lo sito di ciascuna valle slopes, one bank rising and the other falling.[7][8]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the noun meant the position of a place, a building or a town, often with an eye to its defence, as when Villani says Fiesole seemed strong per sito, by its position.[7] Boccaccio uses it for the layout of a room.[2][9] Old variants include sido, sitio and sitto.[7]

The old sense “position, situation” is now obsolete and “place” is literary or technical (un sito archeologico).[8][6][10] Ballistics has linea di sito and angolo di sito, for the line from the gun to the target and its angle with the horizon.[8][11][6] Biology uses it for the point of a protein, an enzyme or a gene where a process takes place, and, from the 1990s it is above all a website.[2][8][6] French site is recorded from 1530.[12]

Timeline

  • 1282 – First record according to Zingarelli.[6]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses sito “place”.[1]
  • 1530 – French site (sit) is recorded.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (obsolete) Position, location; layout, appearance.[2][8][10]
  2. Place, site, locality: Hanno trovato un sito ideale per il campeggio.[2][8][11]
  3. (Internet) A website: Le informazioni sono sul sito del comune.[2][8][11]
  4. (biology) The point of a protein, an enzyme or a gene where an important process takes place: sito attivo.[2][8][10]
  5. (ballistics) In linea di sito, the line from the gun to the target, and angolo di sito, the angle it makes with the horizon.[8][11][6]

sito2 bad smell

Pronunciation

Forms

sito m (plural siti)[3]

Etymology

The smell is borrowed from Latin situs (“mould, decay”), a learned borrowing; the Latin meant properly “neglect, the state of something left abandoned”.[1][4][11][3] DELI and Nocentini take it as the same Latin word as the noun “position”.[1][4] De Vaan instead treats this sense as a separate word and links it with Latin sitis (“thirst”), from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *dʰgʷʰi-tu- (“destruction, perishing”).[5][3] Meyer-Lübke records an old form Old Italian seto (“stench”).[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is Domenico Cavalca (before 1342); GRADIT dates it before 1320.[1][2] Cavalca writes of a place where little water is found, d'un fortissimo sito come di bitume, “with a very strong smell, like bitumen”.[14]

Semantic evolution

The word is Tuscan and literary.[4][11][10] It could name any smell, even a pleasant one, as in Soderini's il buon sito of fragrant plants, but it is mostly a stale or bad one.[9][14] Pirandello writes of the sito di stalla, the smell of the stable, rising from a crowd of peasants.[14]

Timeline

  • Before 1320 – First record according to GRADIT.[2]
  • Before 1342 – Cavalca uses sito “bad smell”.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (regional, Tuscan) A bad smell, a stench: In cantina c'era un sito di muffa.[2][11][10]

Word family

  • sitaccio

sito3 situated

Pronunciation

Forms

sito (feminine sita, masculine plural siti, feminine plural site)[3]

Etymology

The adjective is borrowed from Latin situs (“placed, situated”), the past participle of sinō (“to put; to let”), a learned borrowing.[1][4][2][3] Spanish has the same word, sito.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is Domenico Cavalca (before 1342); Zingarelli dates it 1334.[1][6] Cavalca says that the virtuous mind è sita in alto, is placed on high, and so is always serene.[9]

Semantic evolution

Tommaseo noted in 1861 that the word was not in general use but was still alive among lawyers.[9] It remains the word of bureaucratic and notarial language for the location of a building or a piece of land.[8][11][15]

Timeline

  • 1334 – First record according to Zingarelli.[6]
  • Before 1342 – Cavalca uses sito “situated”.[1]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (bureaucratic) situated, located, especially of real estate: il terreno sito in località Poggio.[8][11][6]

Usage notes

DEI also lists a learned prefix sito-, from Ancient Greek σῖτος (sîtos, “grain, food”), found in medical terms such as sitofobia and sitomania.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ 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
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ 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. 19, 105
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  10. ^ a b c d e Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  14. ^ 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. 19, 106
  15. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  16. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3511
  17. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier