sommo

Forms

sommo (feminine somma, masculine plural sommi, feminine plural somme)^[1] Old and literary forms include Old Italian summo, Old Italian somo and Old Italian sonmo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin summus (“highest”).^[4][5][6][1] The same word is Old French som, Old Occitan som, Catalan som (“shallow”), Old Spanish somo (“top”) and Sardinian summu.^[5][7] Wiktionary compares Spanish sumo and Portuguese sumo.^[1]

The Latin word is a superlative built on sub (“under”).^[5][6] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *sup(a)mo- and Proto-Indo-European *(h₁)up-m(H)o- (“highest”), with Umbrian somo and Ancient Greek ὕπατος (húpatos, “uppermost”) among the cognates.^[8] Nocentini explains the apparent contradiction of a superlative of “under” meaning “highest”: the superlative first meant “farthest, extreme” whichever way the preposition pointed, as in Greek, where the word for “uppermost” is the superlative of ὑπό (hupó, “under”).^[5] Devoto took the base in the sense of movement from below upwards.^[9][10] GRADIT also calls it the superlative of superus (“upper”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record, from an anonymous text of the late 12th or early 13th century, has the sense “above all others”, in rank or worth.^[4] GRADIT also dates this sense to the end of the 13th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense “highest of all” appears in Dante in 1293–1294, and the noun sommo “summit, top” before 1294, in Brunetto Latini.^[4] Dante's a sommo d'una porta “at the top of a gate” shows the noun in the Inferno.^[3] The derivative sommità “top” followed in Cecco d'Ascoli (before 1327) and Boccaccio (about 1336).^[4]

The figurative sense has long been the commoner one: sommo pontefice is the Pope, il sommo poeta is Dante, and sommo bene is the highest good, God.^[10][3][6] Because it expresses the highest degree, the adjective has no comparative or superlative, and Boccaccio's più sommi is rare and literary.^[11] In the tuna traps of the tonnara a sommo is one of the floating cables held by anchors.^[12]

Timeline

• Late 12th or early 13th century – An anonymous text uses the sense “above all others”.^[4]
• 1293–1294 – Dante uses sommo for “highest”.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses the noun “summit”.^[4]
• Before 1327 – Sommità is recorded in Cecco d'Ascoli.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) highest, very high; higher than any other.^[6][10][13]
2. Highest in a hierarchy: sommo sacerdote, high priest.^[6][10]
3. (figurative) Very great, utmost.^[6][13]
4. (figurative) Of a person, supreme or outstanding in an art or activity.^[6][10]

Noun

1. The top, the highest part: al sommo, at the top.^[13][3]
2. (figurative) The highest degree of something.^[13]
3. (fishing) In a tonnara, one of the cables kept at the surface by corks and held by anchors.^[12]

Word family

• sommità
• sommamente
• assommare

Related words

• somma
• sopra
• Latin summus

Usage notes

Set phrases include per sommi capi “in outline”, in sommo grado “to the highest degree” and sommo pontefice “the Pope”.^[6][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 19, 391
3. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse