spessare

Forms

spessare (first-person singular present spésso, first-person singular past historic spessài, past participle spessàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old variant is Old Italian spissare.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spissāre (“to thicken”), derived from spissus (“thick, dense”).^[4][2][5][1] The GDLI instead calls it a learned word and compares Old Occitan espeisar,^[6] and DEI suggests that it may be a loan from Occitan.^[7]

De Vaan finds the likeliest cognates of the Latin adjective in a Greek family of words meaning “thick, wide”, such as Hesychius's Ancient Greek σπιδνόν (spidnón, “thick, coagulated”), and reconstructs Proto-Italic *spisso-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *spid-to-.^[8] He adds that it may have an expressive double consonant, like crassus and grossus.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates it to before 1327, and GRADIT and Devoto–Oli to the 14th century.^[2][4][9] Among its early examples the GDLI quotes Cecco d'Ascoli on the sun raising vapour so that l'aere poi va sempre spessando (“the air then keeps on thickening”).^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian it meant making a liquid thicker or condensing a vapour: the Italian Crescenzi has seeds that cool lust by spessando lo sperma, and later physicians speak of thickening the blood.^[6] Tommaseo adds the intransitive and pronominal spessarsi of grape juice drying in the sun come mele (“like honey”) and of mist thickening in the air.^[10]

Two old figurative uses are “to come thick and fast”, of blows in Jacopone da Todi, and “to frequent”, in Francesco da Barberino.^[10] DEI records old derivatives of the 14th century, spessamento and spessazione.^[7] The verb is now obsolete, replaced by ispessire.^[4][2][1]

Timeline

• Before 1327 – Zingarelli's date for the verb.^[2]
• 14th century – Spessamento and spessazione are recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, obsolete) To make thick or dense; to thicken, condense.^[4][9][2][1]
2. (intransitive and pronominal, spessarsi, obsolete) To become thick, to condense; to grow denser.^[4][9][2][5]

Related words

• spesso
• ispessire
• Latin spissus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d e De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
6. ^ 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, 841
7. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3587
8. ^ 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
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET