Etymologically
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togliere

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈtɔʎ.ʎe.re/[1]

Forms

togliere (first-person singular present tòlgo, first-person singular past historic tòlsi, past participle tòlto, auxiliary avére)[1] Older and literary forms are Old Italian tollere and Old Italian torre, which survives in poetry.[2][3][1][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tollō (“to lift, raise; to take away, remove”).[5][6][7][1] DELI points out that the regular outcome was Old Italian torre, from a form with ⟨-lr-⟩ assimilated, and DEI explains the modern form by the influence of cogliere, which made the verbs inflect alike in the present, the past historic and the participle.[5][4][8] The verb has relatives across Romance: Old French toudre, Old Occitan toldre, Catalan tolre, Old Spanish toller, Portuguese tolher (“to hinder”) and Sardinian tòḍḍere (“to gather”).[6][9] In the south of Italy it was replaced by levare.[4]

The Latin verb meant first “to bear, carry”, then “to raise” and “to carry off”.[5] It continues Proto-Italic *tolnō, a nasal present of Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- (“to bear, lift”), the root also of Latin tolerō (“to bear, endure”).[10][1][6] Cognates include Ancient Greek ἔτλην (étlēn, “I endured”), Gothic 𐌸𐌿𐌻𐌰𐌽 (þulan, “to endure”) and Old High German dolēn (“to bear”), as well as the English thole.[10][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the verb to the second half of the 13th century, and DELI's earliest sense, “to snatch, carry off by force”, is in the Novellino at the end of that century.[7][5] DEI gives the form tollere in Guittone d'Arezzo in the 13th century.[4] The GDLI quotes the Laudario of the Company of San Gilio: “Ki torrà via la pietra del monimento a la porta?” (Who will take away the stone from the door of the tomb?).[11]

Semantic evolution

Dante has the senses “to deprive” (1304–1308), “to free” and “to draw, derive” (1300–1313), and “to remove, move” (1313–1319), and Boccaccio “to take away” (1348–1353).[5] In Old Italian it also meant simply “to take, pick up” and “to rob, carry off”.[4][12] Tommaseo observed that in speech prendere, pigliare and levare did most of its work, so that togliere was more a word of writing.[12] The reflexive togliersi “to take oneself off” is recorded in 1891.[5]

From the participle Old Italian formed maltolta, an unjust tax, which became French maltôte.[9]

Timeline

  • 13th century – Guittone d'Arezzo uses the form tollere.[4]
  • Late 13th century – The Novellino uses togliere for “to snatch away”.[5]
  • 1304–1308 – Dante uses it for “to deprive”.[5]
  • 1313–1319 – Dante uses it for “to remove”.[5]
  • 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it for “to take away”.[5]
  • 1891 – The reflexive togliersi is recorded.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (transitive) To take away, remove, move from a place: Togli i piedi dal divano![7][2][8][1]
  2. To take off a garment or shoes (often togliersi): Si tolse il cappello ed entrò.[7][3]
  3. To take out, extract: togliere un dente.[7][2]
  4. To delete, cross off; to lift or abolish a ban or obligation.[7][2]
  5. To deprive someone of something: Al confine gli hanno tolto il passaporto.[7][2][8]
  6. To take away a feeling or need: Quella notizia mi ha tolto il sonno.[7][8]
  7. To take someone away by force or death: la malattia le tolse il padre.[7][8]
  8. To subtract, deduct: Togli le spese dal totale.[7][8]
  9. To free someone from trouble: togliere qualcuno dai guai.[7]

Word family

  • togliersi
  • distogliere
  • toglimento
  • tolto
  • tollerare
  • cogliere
  • levare
  • Latin tollō
  • English thole

Usage notes

Togliere is irregular: tolgo, togli, toglie, togliamo, togliete, tolgono; past historic tolsi; past participle tolto.[13][14][1] Common phrases are togliere di mezzo, to get rid of (also to kill), togliere il disturbo, to take one's leave, and ciò non toglie che, that does not alter the fact that.[7][2][14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  3. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  4. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3810
  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 c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ 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
  11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 20, 1103
  12. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET, p. 4, 1490
  13. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli