spirituale

Forms

spirituale m or f by sense (plural spirituali)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Late Latin spīrituālis, the Church Latin derivative of spīritus (“breath; spirit”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Latin also had a form spīritālis, which Old Italian kept in spiritale.^[6][7]

The Latin noun is formed on spīrō (“to breathe”) with -tus.^[8][1] De Vaan thinks the verb may imitate the sound of breathing, and finds no direct cognates for it.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in B. Giamboni's Vizi e virtù, before 1292, in the sense “concerning the spirit”.^[2] Dante's Convivio uses it of the angels, beings with no body: Nove ordini di creature spirituali la Chiesa tiene e afferma (“The Church holds and affirms nine orders of spiritual creatures”).^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, incorporeal, was used of the soul, the angels and God himself: L'anima è sustanzia spirituale (“the soul is a spiritual substance”), in the Ottimo commentary on Dante.^[5][6] From the soul it passed to everything that concerns the inner life, and to religion and the Church, set against the temporale, the worldly.^[6][10][7] As a noun, lo spirituale was the Church's authority over souls: G. Villani tells how Pope John deprived the bishop of Arezzo dello spirituale.^[6]

In the second half of the 13th century the frati spirituali, or Spirituals, were the Franciscans who held to a strict reading of the rule of Saint Francis.^[7][11] Many fixed phrases come from the Church: padre spirituale, a priest who guides a believer, esercizi spirituali, comunione spirituale, and senso spirituale, the deeper sense of a text set against the literal one.^[12][10][7]

In modern use it also describes a person who sets great store by the things of the spirit, and testamento spirituale is the moral legacy of a great figure.^[11][10][7] In French, spirituel took the sense “witty, graceful” in the 17th century.^[5]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – First record, in B. Giamboni's Vizi e virtù.^[2][4]
• 1870 – The English spiritual (song) is recorded, later adapted in Italian as a noun spirituale.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. spiritual: incorporeal, immaterial, belonging to a reality beyond the physical: Gli angeli sono esseri spirituali.^[4][12][7]
2. Of the soul and the inner, moral and intellectual life, as against the material or sensual: valori spirituali, amore spirituale.^[4][12][11]
3. (religion) Of religion, mysticism and asceticism; of the Church and its ministers, as against temporal: potere spirituale, padre spirituale.^[4][12][10]
4. Of a person: giving great weight to the values of the spirit: Da giovane era un ragazzo assai spirituale.^[11][10][13]
5. (history) Relating to the Spirituals, the Franciscans of the 13th and 14th centuries who held to a strict reading of the rule.^[4][11][12]
6. (archaic) Devout, religious.^[11][10][13]

Noun

1. lo spirituale: the sphere of the spirit, free of material things.^[7]
2. (historical) The Church's jurisdiction over souls, as against the temporal power.^[6]
3. (history) A member of the Franciscan Spirituals.^[4][7]

Word family

• spiritualità
• spiritualmente
• spiritualismo
• spiritualista
• spiritualizzare

Related words

• spirito
• spiritale
• Latin spiritualis
• French spirituel

Usage notes

Old and poetic forms are spiritale and spirtale.^[7][13] The word is said in four syllables or in five, /spi.riˈtwa.le/ or /spi.ri.tuˈa.le/.^[1] A separate noun spirituale, the spiritual song of Black Americans, is an adaptation of the English spiritual (song); E. Cecchi used it.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
6. ^ a b c d e Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli