stanza

Forms

stanza f (plural stanze)^[1] The old form stanzia survives in Umbria.^[2][3] Old texts also have Old Italian stantia and Old Italian stança.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *stantia (“dwelling, stay”), a noun formed from Latin stāns, the present participle of stō (“to stand, stay”).^[5][6][7][1] Devoto explains it as an abstract noun for a set of things that stand together, complete in themselves, whether a room or a unit of verse.^[8]

DEI finds the word in Italian, Ladin and Catalan.^[2] Meyer-Lübke lists Engadine and Friulian forms and Catalan estança, and Körting Old Occitan estansa (“position”) and French étance (“prop”).^[9][10] Spanish estancia is a separate formation, and French stance “stanza” is a loan from Italian.^[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is a Florentine document of 1286–1290 (dated 1286–1287).^[4] DELI's earliest sense, “staying in a place, dwelling”, is in Dante: Ché la tua stanza mio pianger disagia (“for your staying hinders my weeping”).^[5][7][3]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio used the word for a room of a house in 1348–1353, and a document from L'Aquila of about 1425–1430 has stantie for military quarters.^[5] In the metrical sense Medieval Latin stantia appears in Francesco da Barberino in 1314 and in Dante's De vulgari eloquentia.^[5][4] Passavanti uses Italian stanza for a song in 1354, and Pietro Bembo gives it its modern sense, a group of lines that forms the unit of a canzone, in 1525.^[5] In the 15th and 16th centuries Stanze served as the title of poems in ottava rima.^[2] Etymonline explains the metrical sense by the stop at the end of the group of lines.^[11]

The metrical sense passed into French as stance (1550) and into English as stanza (1588).^[12][11] German Stanze first meant a room (1572) and a passenger's place on a ship, and only later a stanza.^[12] English stance comes from the same Vulgar Latin word, probably through French.^[11] Modern Italian has stanza di compensazione, a clearing house of banks, and la stanza dei bottoni, the room where power is exercised.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1286–1287 – A Florentine document has the first record.^[4]
• 1314 – Francesco da Barberino uses Medieval Latin stantia for a strophe.^[5]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses stanza for staying in a place.^[5]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it for a room.^[5][12]
• 1354 – Iacopo Passavanti uses it for a song.^[5]
• About 1425–1430 – A document from L'Aquila uses stantie for military quarters.^[5]
• 1525 – Pietro Bembo uses it for the unit of a canzone.^[5]
• 1550 – French stance is first recorded.^[12]
• 1572 – German Stantzen “rooms” is recorded.^[12]
• 1588 – English stanza is first recorded.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A room of a building, for living or working in: La casa ha quattro stanze e un piccolo giardino.^[7][13][15]
2. A hall of special artistic or historical value, often capitalised: le Stanze Vaticane.^[7][13]
3. (metrics) A stanza of a canzone or ballata, and the ottava of the chivalric poem.^[7][13][15]
4. (literary) A stay or sojourn in a place, a dwelling.^[7][15][14]
5. (military) A permanent station, in di stanza: Il reggimento è di stanza a Bolzano.^[14][3][16]
6. (banking) stanza di compensazione: a clearing house.^[13][14]
7. (hunting) A sheltered place in the woods where a deer lies up.^[7]

Word family

• stanzino
• stanzetta
• stanziale
• stanziare
• stanziamento
• retrostanza

Related words

• stare
• French stance
• English stanza

Usage notes

An obsolete literary stanza meaning “request”, often in a stanza di “at the request of”, is istanza with the first syllable dropped.^[7][17][18]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3619
3. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
5. ^ 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
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 h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b c d e f Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
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 c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 20, 79
18. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET