starnutare

Forms

starnutare (first-person singular present starnùto, first-person singular past historic starnutài, past participle starnutàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Less common sternutare and popular stranutare exist beside it.^[2][3][4] Old Italian texts have sternutare, stranuare and stranutari.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sternūtō (“to sneeze repeatedly or violently”), a frequentative of sternuō (“to sneeze”).^{[6][7][1][2][3][8]} DELI quotes Migliorini: the frequentative is not recorded before Petronius, but it must have existed in classical times, since Cicero uses the noun sternūtāmentum.^[6] The noun starnuto comes from Late Latin sternūtum, and starnutire is the same verb moved into the conjugation in ⟨-ire⟩, which Meyer-Lübke puts down to the model of tussiō (“to cough”).^[6][7][9]

The verb is found across the Romance languages: French éternuer, Occitan estornudar, Catalan estornudar, Spanish estornudar, Sardinian isturridare and Romanian strănuta.^[7][9][10] Sicilian stranutari has the same shift of the ⟨r⟩ as the popular Italian stranutare.^[9]

The Latin verb has secure but only approximate parallels, as usual for imitative words: Ancient Greek πτάρνυμαι (ptárnumai, “to sneeze”), Middle Irish sreod (“sneezing”) and Welsh ystrew (“sneezing”).^[7][11] De Vaan allows that the sound of sneezing may have reshaped all of these, but thinks the shared ⟨r⟩ points to an inherited word, and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *(p)st-(e)r-nu- (“to sneeze”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Milanese poems of Bonvesin da la Riva, who died before 1315: quand tu stranudi / on k'el te prende la tosse (“when you sneeze or a cough takes you”), in the sense “to sneeze”.^[5][12][7]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb of people and of animals, and once in the sense “to yawn”.^[5] The Tuscan translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi's treatise on farming, of about 1350, has both starnutare and the noun starnuto, writing of a horse that begins to cough and sneeze often.^[6][13] The derivatives starnutamento and starnutatorio are also of the 14th century.^[14]

Later writers use all three forms: Boiardo has sternutando, Aretino says pepper makes one istarnutare, Goldoni has snuff that fa stranutare, and D'Annunzio writes sternutato.^[12] In the 20th century starnutatori became the name of chemical agents that irritate the lining of the nose.^[14] Today the verb is a less common and literary form of starnutire.^[15][4][16]

Timeline

• Before 1315 – Bonvesin da la Riva uses stranudi “you sneeze”.^[5][12][7]
• 1310 – Starnutire is recorded in Zucchero Bencivenni.^[6]
• c. 1350 – Starnutare and starnuto appear in the Tuscan translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi.^[6]
• 14th century – Starnutamento and starnutatorio are recorded.^[14]
• 20th century – Starnutatori is used for sneezing agents.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, literary or uncommon) To sneeze, once or several times; the same as starnutire: Entrando nella soffitta polverosa cominciò a starnutare.^{[15][4][3][2][1]}

Word family

• starnutamento
• starnutatorio

Related words

• starnutire
• starnuto
• Latin sternuo

Usage notes

Starnutare is marked as rare in GRADIT, and the Treccani dictionary calls it less common than starnutire, which is the usual verb.^[15][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
3. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
4. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
6. ^ a b c d e f 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 d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c 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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3620
15. ^ a b c De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)