suora

Forms

suora f (plural suore)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Old Italian suoro, Old Italian suore, Old Italian sora and Old Italian soro.^[2][3][1] Before a proper name the word is shortened to suor.^[4][5][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Italian suoro, inherited from Latin soror (“sister”), from the Latin nominative.^[6][7][8][1] The final /r/ was lost, and the word was then moved into the class of feminine nouns in ⟨-a⟩.^[6][2][1] The everyday Italian word for “sister”, sorella, is a diminutive of the same Latin word, formed after fratello.^[9][10]

The Latin word is pan-Romance:^[10] Romanian soră, French sœur and Occitan sorre; Catalan sor means “nun”, as in Old Spanish and Old Portuguese, because the Iberian languages took their word for “sister” from Latin germana, the full sister: Catalan germana, Spanish hermana and Portuguese irmã.^[7][9][11] The Calabrian form ⟨suoru⟩ owes its ending to ⟨socru⟩ “mother-in-law”.^[10]

The Latin word comes from Proto-Italic *swesōr- and Proto-Indo-European *swésōr (“sister”).^[12][1] The PIE word may be a compound of *swé (“self, one's own”) and a word for “woman”, an element ⟨-sor⟩ that Nocentini also sees in Latin uxor (“wife”).^[12][7] Cognates include Old Irish siur, Lithuanian sesuõ, German Schwester and English sister.^[12][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the Novellino at the end of the 13th century, in the sense “sister”: the Greeks demand back “our sister Hesione” (nostra suora Eusiona).^[6][13] The Zingarelli dates the word to 1268.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian suora meant both “sister” and “nun”; the religious sense is recorded in Passavanti in 1354.^[6][7] Migliorini explained that once frate and suora became the titles of members of the new religious orders, both were restricted to church use, and fratello and sorella took over the everyday meaning.^[6] Fourteenth-century Tuscan still had many words for “sister”: sorella, suora (Dante, Villani), suore (Cavalca), sorore (Petrarch), serocchia, sirocchia and sorocchia.^[6]

The old sense survived in poetry: Francis of Assisi praises God “for sister moon” (per sora luna), and Foscolo bids the Graces farewell with o belle suore.^[2][14] In popular Tuscan speech suora was also the clay pot of embers set inside a wooden frame (the prete) to warm a bed, recorded by Panzini in 1935.^[6][15] Italian missionaries took the word to Ma'di, in Uganda and South Sudan.^[1]

Timeline

• 1268 – The Zingarelli dates suora to this year.^[2]
• Late 13th century – The Novellino uses suora for “sister”.^[6]
• 1354 – Passavanti uses suora for a nun.^[6]
• 1935 – Panzini records suora for a bed-warmer filled with embers.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (religion) A nun of an order or congregation who has taken only simple vows; before a name suor: Ne parlò con suor Chiara.^[8][4][5]
2. In general use, any nun, a monaca.^[8][4][2]
3. (in the plural) Part of the names of religious congregations of women: Suore della Carità.^[4][14]
4. (archaic, poetic) sister.^[8][5][2]
5. (popular) A bed-warmer: a clay pot filled with embers, put in a frame under the bedclothes.^[15][6]

Word family

• suorina

Related words

• sorella
• sororale
• sororicida
• Latin soror
• French sœur

Usage notes

Addressed without a name, a nun is called sorella, not suora.^[16] In the strict sense suora is a nun with simple vows and monaca one with solemn vows, but common use treats them as synonyms.^[4][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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, p. 20, 525
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975)
11. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
12. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)