sonnacchioso

Forms

sonnacchioso (feminine sonnacchiosa, masculine plural sonnacchiosi, feminine plural sonnacchiose)^[1] The old Tuscan form is sonnocchioso; the GDLI also lists sonacchioso and sonnachioso.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin somniculōsus (“sleepy, drowsy”).^[5][6][7][1] That adjective is from Latin somniculus (“a light sleep”), a diminutive of somnus (“sleep”), with the suffix -ōsus.^[5][6][1] The OLD derives it from the noun with an ending modelled on words like perīculōsus.^[8] Devoto sees in the Italian vowel the influence of verbs in -acchiare such as ridacchiare, and Wiktionary notes that the word can be read as sonnecchiare with -oso.^[9][1]

The Latin word gave Old French someilleux and Old Occitan somelhos, and the Occitan word was borrowed as Old Italian sonniglioso and sonnoglioso.^[10][11] De Vaan traces the noun to Proto-Italic *swepno- or *swopno-.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Boccaccio's Decameron, in the old form: one of the lady's maidservants, in vista tutta sonnocchiosa (“looking all drowsy”), comes to the window.^[5][3] The sense is full of sleep, barely awake.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

The 16th century added an active sense, “causing sleep”, recorded in Alamanni and still found in Sannazaro's sonnacchiosi papaveri (“sleep-bringing poppies”), and figurative senses: “dull” in Bembo, “careless, negligent” in Guarino.^[11][13][4] Leopardi uses it of indolent descendants, figli sonnacchiosi ed egri (“sons drowsy and sickly”).^[7][4]

Today the word mainly means sleepy, half awake; the figurative sense is literary and the active one archaic.^[7][13][4]

Timeline

• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio's Decameron has sonnocchiosa.^[7][5]
• 16th century – Alamanni uses the word for “causing sleep”, Bembo for “dull” and Guarino for “negligent”.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. sleepy, drowsy, still heavy with sleep: rispose al telefono con voce sonnacchiosa.^{[7][13][14][1]}
2. (figurative, literary) indolent, apathetic, sluggish.^{[7][13][14][1]}
3. (archaic) Causing sleep, soporific.^{[7][13][15][1]}

Word family

• sonnacchiosamente

Related words

• sonno
• sonnolento
• sonnecchiare
• Latin somniculosus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 19, 407
4. ^ 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)
5. ^ a b c d e 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 414
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3543
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli