spettare

Forms

spettare (first-person singular present spètto, first-person singular past historic spettài, past participle spettàto, auxiliary èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin spectāre (“to look at; to face, concern”), the frequentative of speciō (“to look”).^[2][3][4][5] Nocentini classes it as a borrowing from Latin and gives the Latin senses “to regard, concern, refer to”, from the basic “to look”.^[2] DELI glosses the Latin verb “to observe, to turn towards”.^[6] Prati also names expectāre.^[7]

That verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *speḱ- (“to look”), the root also of Ancient Greek σκέπτομαι (sképtomai, “I look around”) (with the consonants swapped) and Old High German spehōn (“to spy”).^[8]

The TLIO records the sense “to belong, to be one's due” under Old Italian aspettare, from the Latin verb with the prefix ad-, first in Bono Giamboni before 1292.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word to 1304–1308, the years of Dante's Convivio, where the GDLI quotes it in the sense “to concern, relate to”: the soul is said to be only what spetta a la parte razionale.^[3][10] DELI's first record of the modern sense “to be one's right or duty” is from 1800, in the Milanese press.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb meant “to relate to, have to do with”, and the 14th-century statutes of the Florentine leather-workers speak of goods that spectasse o pertenesse to the guild.^[10] Zingarelli dates the word to 1344.^[11] DEI and Prati give the 17th-century preacher Paolo Segneri as the first author of spettare in the sense “to belong by right”, and Tommaseo quotes him.^[12][7][13]

In 1873 Tommaseo distinguished it from appartenere: spettare applies to both right and duty and sometimes to what is fitting, appartenere more often to right and to property.^[6][13] The noun spettanza “competence” appears in 1798, and in the plural, “what is due for work done”, by 1960.^[6]

Timeline

• 1304–1308 – Dante uses spettare in the Convivio.^[3][10]
• 1344 – Zingarelli's date for spettare.^[11]
• 1798 – Spettanza “competence” appears in the Monitore italiano.^[6]
• 1800 – DELI's first record of spettare “to be one's right or duty”.^[6]
• 1812 – Spettanza is recorded in Bernardini.^[12][7]
• 1873 – Tommaseo sets spettare apart from appartenere.^[6][13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, with a) To be someone's responsibility or task; to be up to someone: Non spetta a noi decidere.^{[3][14][15][1]}
2. (intransitive, with a) To fall within the powers of an authority or institution.^[3][5]
3. (intransitive, with a) To be due to someone by right; to belong to: Dategli la parte che gli spetta.^{[3][14][15][1]}

Word family

• spettanza
• spettante

Related words

• aspettare
• spettacolo
• spettatore
• Latin spectō

Usage notes

The verb takes essere and the preposition a; with an infinitive as subject it is used impersonally in the third person singular (spetta ai giudici valutare).^[15][14] In commerce per conto di chi spetta means “on behalf of whom it may concern”.^[3] The GDLI and DEI also record an old spettare “to wait”, a form of aspettare with the first vowel lost, from the 14th century.^[10][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
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 d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 938
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. ^ Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
10. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 19, 853
11. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
12. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3588
13. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse