Etymologically
Log in

sperare

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 21 October 2026 at 19:20. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /speˈra.re/[1]

Forms

sperare (first-person singular present spèro, first-person singular past historic sperài, past participle speràto, auxiliary avére)[1] An old form is Old Italian spierare.[2] The poetic nouns speme and spene “hope” continue the Latin accusative ⟨spem⟩.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spērō (“to hope, look forward to”), a verb formed from the noun spēs (“hope”).[4][5][6][1] The Latin verb lives on in the western Romance languages: French espérer, Occitan esperar, Catalan esperar, Spanish esperar and Portuguese esperar, and in Sardinian isperare.[5][7][8] Romanian spera is a later borrowing from Latin.[1]

De Vaan traces the Latin noun to Proto-Indo-European *spéh₁-s (“prosperity”), a noun of the root Proto-Indo-European *speh₁- (“to thrive, succeed”), which also gave Lithuanian spėti (“to be in time, manage”), Old Church Slavonic спѣти (spěti, “to succeed”) and Old English spōwan (“to prosper”).[9][5] Devoto adds that the noun was once an s-stem and only later passed into the fifth declension.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the Sicilian poet Tommaso di Sasso, in the 13th century, in the transitive sense “to wait with desire and trust for something good”; the construction sperare in “to put one's trust in” is in Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250, the date GRADIT gives for the verb.[4][6] GDLI quotes Guittone d'Arezzo: “Senza ciò, aver onor no spero” (without that, I do not hope to have honour).[2]

Semantic evolution

In the old language sperare could also mean simply “to wait for, expect”, as in Petrarch's “di dì in dì spero ormai l'ultima sera” (from day to day I now await the last evening), and “to believe, think”; both senses are now obsolete.[6][11][12] The noun speranza is as old as the verb (Giacomo da Lentini, before 1250); DELI takes it from Old Occitan esperansa, Nocentini from a Vulgar Latin *sperantia.[4][5] It named the theological virtue in Bono Giamboni before 1292 and, from Carlo Dossi before 1910, a young person who shows promise.[4]

Modern Italian uses the verb above all with di and an infinitive or che and a subjunctive, in polite replies such as spero di sì and spero di no, and in the weather proverb rosso di sera, bel tempo si spera.[6][13][14] Speranzoso and sperabile are recorded in Paolo Segneri in 1686;[4] Panzini still doubted in 1905 that speranzoso was a word to imitate.[4]

Timeline

  • Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses sperare in and the noun speranza.[4]
  • 13th century – Tommaso di Sasso uses the transitive verb.[4]
  • Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses speranza for the theological virtue.[4]
  • Before 1320 – The unrelated sperare “to hold up to the light” is first recorded.[6]
  • 1686 – Paolo Segneri uses sperabile and speranzoso.[4]
  • Before 1910 – Carlo Dossi uses speranza for a promising young talent.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To hope, to wait with confidence for something good to happen, with di and an infinitive or che and a clause: Spero di finire la tesi entro marzo.[6][13][15]
  2. To wish that something will or will not happen; in answers, spero di sì, spero di no, lo spero.[6][13][11]
  3. To expect or look forward to a particular result: Sperava un aumento di stipendio.[6][15][12]
  4. (intransitive, with in) To put one's trust in someone or something, to count on it: Speriamo nel bel tempo per la gita.[6][14][1]
  5. (intransitive, absolute) To keep hoping, to be hopeful about the future.[6][15]
  6. (obsolete) To wait for, await.[6][11]

Word family

  • speranza
  • speranzoso
  • sperabile
  • disperare
  • disperato
  • disperazione
  • insperato

Usage notes

A separate, mainly Tuscan verb sperare means “to look at something against the light”, especially an egg to see whether it is fresh or fertile, or paper to see its watermark; it is formed from spera “ray of light; sphere”, from Greek sphaîra.[6][1][14][16] GRADIT dates it before 1320, and the Italian Crescenzi already advises candling eggs this way.[6][16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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, 820
  3. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 937
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 k l m 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. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3585
  9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 420
  11. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  12. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  13. ^ a b c 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 c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  16. ^ 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, 821