tostare

Forms

tostare (first-person singular present tòsto, first-person singular past historic tostài, past participle tostàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Late Latin tostāre (“to parch, roast”), recorded in the 6th century in Plinius Valerianus.^[2][3][4][5] The Latin verb is formed from tostus (“parched”), the past participle of Latin torreō (“to dry, scorch”).^[2][3][6][7] DELI notes that the late first record does not rule out a loan from Spanish tostar, and Prati gives both explanations.^[2][8] The Spanish verb, recorded from 1220–1250, and Portuguese tostar continue the same Latin word, as does Sardinian tostare in Logudorese.^[4][3][9]

De Vaan traces torreō through Proto-Italic to Proto-Indo-European *ters- (“to become dry”).^[10] Its cognates include Ancient Greek τέρσομαι (térsomai, “to become dry”) and Gothic 𐌸𐌰𐌿𐍂𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (þaursjan, “to be thirsty”).^[10] The same participle gave Italian tosto, both the adjective meaning hard and the adverb meaning soon.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in John Florio's Italian–English dictionary of 1598, which glosses tostare as “to toste, to bloate, to parch with heate”.^[2][4][12]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant drying something by heat, especially nuts and seeds.^[2][12] Salvini wrote of beans toasted in the fire, and with the spread of coffee the word became the usual verb for roasting coffee beans, cocoa and barley: Goldoni has a character told to go and roast the coffee.^[13][12] The roaster for coffee, tostino, is recorded in Fanfani's dictionary of 1863.^[14]

The sense “to toast slices of bread” is recorded from 1891, in Petrocchi's dictionary, and the electric toaster, tostapane, from 1955.^[2] In slang tostare also means to beat someone up.^[4][5][15]

Timeline

• 1598 – Florio's dictionary records tostare.^[2][4]
• Before 1698 – Redi uses tostatura, the roasting of coffee.^[2][8]
• 18th century – Salvini uses tostato, and Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti tosticchiare.^[14]
• 1757 – Saverio Bettinelli uses tostare in the sense “to toast, drink to”.^[2]
• 1863 – Tostino, a coffee roaster, appears in Fanfani's dictionary.^[14]
• 1891 – Petrocchi records the sense “to toast bread”.^[2]
• 1955 – Tostapane “toaster” is first recorded.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To roast nuts, seeds and the like until dry: tostare le noci per il dolce.^[4][16][15]
2. To roast coffee beans, cocoa or barley; to torrefare.^[4][5][16]
3. To toast bread, usually in slices, in a tostapane or an oven.^[4][5][6]
4. (slang) To thrash, beat up.^{[4][5][15][1]}

Word family

• tostapane
• tostatura
• tostino
• tostacaffè
• tostatore

Related words

• tosto
• torrido
• torrefare
• Spanish tostar
• Latin torreo

Usage notes

The past participle tostato is also an adjective: caffè tostato, pane tostato.^[7] In the 18th century tostare also meant “to toast, drink to the health of”, a separate loan from English to toast through French; the GDLI treats it as a separate verb.^[2][12]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
8. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1005
9. ^ 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. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 448
12. ^ a b c d Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21
13. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3841
15. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse