Etymologically
Log in

tradire

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 20:49. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /traˈdi.re/[1]

Forms

tradire (first-person singular present tradìsco, first-person singular past historic tradìi, past participle tradìto, auxiliary avére)[1] Old forms include tradere (14th century, Francesco da Barberino) and traire.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin trādere (“to hand over, deliver”), moved into the conjugation in ⟨-ire⟩, as in other Romance languages.[5][6][7][1] Nocentini counts it as a borrowing from Latin, Prati says it came in through the written language, and DEI calls it semi-learned.[6][8][2] The Latin verb is made of trāns (“across, beyond”) and dō (“to give”).[5][7][1]

The same verb is French trahir, Old Occitan trair, Catalan trair, Portuguese trair, Engadine tradir and Romanian trăda;[6][9][1][10] Spanish uses the derivative traicionar instead.[6][9][1][10]

The sense “to betray” goes back to Christian Latin, where the verb meant both to hand down (an inheritance, a doctrine) and to hand over treacherously to an enemy, and the Gospels use it for Judas handing Jesus over (“Iudas qui tradidit eum”), translating Ancient Greek παραδίδωμι (paradídōmi, “to hand over”).[5][6][11] DELI also cites the bishops called trāditōrēs who handed the sacred books to the authorities in Diocletian's persecution.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dante is the first to use the verb, in the Divine Comedy (1300–1313), in the sense of deceiving someone's trust by failing in friendship, love, a promise or a duty.[5][7] In Inferno XXXIII Ugolino is accused of having betrayed the castles (tradita te delle castella), that is, handed them over.[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian tradire could still mean to hand a city or a castle over to the enemy, as in Giovanni Villani.[2][8] Its derivatives are as old as the verb: tradimento (1304–1308) and traditore (1300–1313) are both in Dante, and a tradimento “treacherously” is in Guido da Pisa and Villani.[5]

Later the verb was used of things that fail someone (1679, Paolo Segneri), and of a feeling or a fact revealed without wanting to (1877); the reflexive tradirsi, to give oneself away, is recorded in the same year, although Tommaseo disapproved of it.[5] Today it also means being unfaithful to a partner and distorting the sense of a text in translating it.[7][4]

Timeline

  • 1300–1313 – Dante uses tradire and traditore.[5]
  • 1304–1308 – Dante uses tradimento.[5]
  • 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses a tradimento.[5]
  • 1679 – Paolo Segneri uses the verb for something that fails one.[5]
  • 1877 – The senses “to reveal unwittingly” and reflexive “to give oneself away” are recorded.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To betray: to break someone's trust or fail in one's duty to them: Non avrebbe mai tradito i suoi compagni di squadra.[7][12][13]
  2. To be unfaithful to one's partner: Ha scoperto che il fidanzato la tradiva.[7][12][4]
  3. To betray an ideal, a cause or one's country, to go against it.[7][12][14]
  4. To disappoint hopes or expectations.[7][4][15]
  5. To distort, misrepresent the truth, a thought, or a text in translation.[7][13][4]
  6. Of a faculty, to fail someone: Se la memoria non mi tradisce, ci siamo già visti.[4][14][15]
  7. To reveal a secret; to show a feeling without wanting to: Il tremito della voce tradiva la sua paura.[12][13][4]
  8. (archaic) To hand over a city or a person to the enemy by treachery.[4][14][13]
  9. (reflexive, tradirsi) To give oneself away.[4][14][15]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3850
  3. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1007
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  12. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  13. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  14. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli