tastare

Forms

tastare (first-person singular present tàsto, first-person singular past historic tastài, past participle tastàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *tastāre, which is recorded as Medieval Latin tastāre in medieval documents.^[2][3][4][1] Its origin is disputed.^[5][6][7]

DELI, Meyer-Lübke, GRADIT, Treccani and the GDLI take the verb, with some hesitation, as a blend of Latin tangō (“to touch”) and gustō (“to taste”).^{[5][8][3][9][10]} DELI points out that in several dialects the verb still means “to taste”.^{[5][8][3][9][10]} Meyer-Lübke found that original sense in Old Occitan, in northern and southern Italian dialects and in Sardinian.^[8] Devoto saw a blend of taxō (“to touch; to appraise”) and the verb for tasting.^[11]

Nocentini instead derives it from the same Latin intensive of the verb for touching, through a participle *taxitus rather than the unlikely frequentative *taxitāre.^[2] That frequentative was Diez's proposal, followed by Körting and Wiktionary.^[8][12][1] Meyer-Lübke rejected it because it neglects the original sense “to taste”.^[8][12][1] Prati called the origin unknown, and Devoto–Oli derives the verb from tasto, which it takes as a variant of tatto.^[13][14][5] DELI, on the contrary, takes the noun to be formed from the verb.^[13][14][5]

The verb is Old French taster, modern French tâter, and Old Occitan tastar, Catalan tastar, Friulian tastâ, Sardinian attastare, Venetian tastar and Sicilian tastari.^[2][8][1][4] French passed it on to German, where tasten is recorded from 1204, and to English, as taste.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Dante's Commedia, of 1313–1319, with the sense “to touch repeatedly and lightly, to feel something by touch”.^[5][3] Before 1404 the commentator Buti glossed it tastare è cercare (“to tastare is to search”).^[5]

Semantic evolution

Boccaccio used it in 1341–1342 in the familiar sense “to touch, to feel”, and also for testing: a man sounds the barrels he thought full of oil and finds them full of sea water (tastate le botti che si credeva che piene d'olio fossero).^[5][3][9] In the 14th century it also meant to taste, a sense that survives in Tuscany and other regions.^[4][7][14]

Tastare il polso, to feel someone's pulse, is a calque of French tâter le pouls and has come to mean sounding out someone's intentions or means.^[9][14] Tastare il terreno is to test the ground with the foot and, figuratively, to explore a situation before acting.^[9][14] The noun tasto, from the 14th century, gave the key of an organ or harpsichord (1561), and tastiera the keyboard (1607); a tastoni, groping, is recorded from 1494.^[5][2]

Timeline

• 1204 – German tasten, taken from Old French, is recorded.^[4]
• 1313–1319 – Dante uses tastare for touching lightly to feel something.^[5]
• 1341–1342 – Boccaccio uses it for touching and feeling.^[5]
• Before 1404 – Buti glosses tastare as “to search”.^[5]
• 1494 – A tastoni “groping” appears in Pacioli.^[5]
• 1561 – Tasto is used for the key of a keyboard instrument.^[5]
• 1607 – Tastiera appears in Galilei.^[5]
• 1643 – Tastata appears in Buommattei.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To feel, to touch lightly and repeatedly to find out something by touch: Al buio tastai la parete in cerca della porta.^{[3][14][6][7]}
2. To probe with the foot or a stick to test firmness or depth: Tastava il ghiaccio con un ramo prima di camminarci sopra.^[3][9][15]
3. (colloquial) To grope, to touch someone for sexual pleasure.^[3][14][9]
4. (regional, Tuscany) To taste food or drink.^{[3][14][7][6]}
5. (engineering) To take samples of the ground with a tasta.^[3][14]

Word family

• tasto
• tastiera
• tastoni
• tastata
• tasta
• tasteggiare
• tastamento
• tastatore
• ritastare
• attastare

Related words

• tangere
• gustare
• French tâter

Usage notes

Tastare il polso means literally to feel someone's pulse and figuratively to sound out their intentions or means.^[3][7][9] Tastare il terreno is to test the ground and figuratively to explore a situation before acting.^[3][7][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3729
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d e f Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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)
10. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
13. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 979
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli