svanire

Forms

svanire (first-person singular present svanìsco, first-person singular past historic svanìi, past participle svanìto, auxiliary èssere)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Italian s- + vanire, with the intensive prefix.^[2][3][4][5] DELI calls it a parasynthetic compound of vano (“empty, vain”), and GRADIT too derives it from the adjective.^[6][7] The prefix goes back to ex-, here with intensive force;^[8][9] Devoto calls it durative.^[8][9] The base verb, meaning “to fade away” and recorded before 1294, is itself formed on the adjective, which is vānus (“empty”).^[2][7][6]

Older dictionaries derive it from Latin: Battisti and Alessio from Latin ēvānēscō (“to vanish”) and the adjective, Prati and Körting from a popular Vulgar Latin *exvānīre, which Wiktionary also gives.^{[10][11][12][1]} Meyer-Lübke lists beside it Friulian avani, Old French esvanir and Portuguese esvair.^[13] French évanouir has a separate source, a form built on the Latin perfect.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Fiore, a Florentine poem of the last quarter of the 13th century.^[14] DELI's first dated sense is “to scatter, come to nothing”, in the Fioretti di San Francesco in the 14th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the verb of a vapour or scent spreading until it can no longer be perceived, of something disappearing from sight as it loses its substance, of anything fading into nothing, and also in the senses “to be useless” and “to lose touch with reality” in false reasoning.^[14] The sense “to lose flavour or aroma” is in a translation of Seneca and in Pietro Lauro (1564), and the GDLI quotes Mattioli on wine lees that quickly lose their strength.^[6][8] DELI dates the plain sense “to vanish, disappear” only to Tommaseo's dictionary (1873).^[6] Tommaseo also records a rare transitive use, “to make disappear”, in Mattioli.^[15]

The past participle svanito meant “flavourless” in Sercambi about 1400 and “vanished” in Annibal Caro, and since 1619 it has described a person whose mind has weakened.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 1275–1300 – Svanire appears in the Florentine Fiore.^[14]
• 14th century – The Fioretti di San Francesco use it for “to come to nothing”.^[6]
• c. 1400 – Giovanni Sercambi uses svanito “flavourless”.^[6]
• 1564 – Pietro Lauro uses the verb for losing flavour.^[6]
• 1619 – Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger uses svanito of a weak-minded person.^[6]
• 1873 – Tommaseo's dictionary records the sense “to vanish, disappear”.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To fade away gradually, to disperse: Il fumo svanì in pochi minuti.^{[7][3][4][16][17]}
2. (intransitive) To vanish, disappear from view: svanire nel nulla.^[7][3][16]
3. (intransitive) Of a smell, flavour or spirit, to lose its strength; to evaporate.^{[7][3][4][16]}
4. (intransitive, figurative) Of a feeling or hope, to fade, cease to exist; of a memory, to fade away.^{[7][3][4][16]}
5. (intransitive) Of a person, to stop being seen around.^[3]
6. (intransitive, literary) To die.^[7][3]

Word family

• svanito
• svanimento
• svanevole

Related words

• vano
• evanescente
• Latin ēvānēscō

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
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 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 f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3685
11. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
12. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
13. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
17. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana