tossire

Forms

tossire (first-person singular present tossìsco, first-person singular past historic tossìi, past participle tossìto, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian tosire, Old Italian tossere, Old Italian tosere and Old Italian tuscire.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tussiō (“to cough”), a verb formed from tussis (“a cough”), which is also the source of tosse.^{[3][4][5][6][1]} The Latin verb is recorded from Plautus.^[7][8]

The verb is panromance: Catalan tossir, Spanish toser, Portuguese tussir, Old Occitan tusir and Romansh tussir.^[9][10] Old French tossir was replaced by French tousser in the 16th century.^[7]

De Vaan finds a link with tundō (“to beat”) possible in meaning but hard in form, since a formation from that verb would have had a long vowel and a single /s/; the double /ss/ may then be an expressive gemination, or the word may be pure onomatopoeia.^[11] He notes that the root Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₂s- (“to cough”) ends in -s too.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Rustico di Filippo, who died before 1300: Non vedi che di mezzo luglio tosse (“Don’t you see he coughs in mid-July?”).^[12][2] Dante, before 1321, mocks the wife of “Bicci called Forese”: Chi udisse tossir la malfatata moglie di Bicci (“Whoever heard the ill-starred wife of Bicci cough”).^[12][2] The sense is to have a fit of coughing.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Dante recalls quella che tossìo / al primo fallo scritto di Ginevra (the lady who coughed at Guinevere’s first recorded fault), a cough given as a signal.^[13] DELI dates the separate sense “to give a false cough as a signal” to Petrocchi's dictionary of 1891.^[12] The present tense has two series: tossisco is the usual modern form, and tosso, common in the older writers (Ariosto has io non tosso), is now rare.^[2][14][15]

Derivatives appear early: tossitore (one who coughs) in 1329 and tossimento in the medical Libro della cura delle malattie.^[7]

Timeline

• Before 1300 – Rustico di Filippo has tosse “coughs”.^[12][2]
• Before 1321 – Dante has tossir.^[12][2]
• 1329 – Tossitore is recorded.^[7]
• 1891 – Petrocchi records the sense “to signal with a false cough”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To cough; to have a fit of coughing: Ha tossito per tutta la sera.^{[16][6][17][1]}
2. (intransitive) To give a false cough as a signal or warning to someone: Tossii per fargli capire che stava sbagliando.^{[16][6][14][17]}

Word family

• tossicchiare
• ritossire
• tossimento
• tossitore

Related words

• tosse
• Latin tussis

Usage notes

The auxiliary is avere.^[6][5] Besides tossisco, tossisci, the older tosso, tossi are still allowed but uncommon.^{[6][5][14][13]}

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3841
8. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ 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 d e f g Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
17. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana