traverso

Forms

traverso (feminine traversa, masculine plural traversi, feminine plural traverse)^[1] An old variant is Old Italian traverscio.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trānsversus (“lying across, oblique”), properly the past participle of trānsvertō (“to turn across”), from trāns- (“across”) and vertō (“to turn”).^[4][5][6][1] Latin also wrote it trāversus, without the ⟨ns⟩.^[7] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *trānsworssos.^[1] The Latin adjective already had notable uses as a noun and an adverb.^[4][8]

The same word is French travers, Occitan travers, Catalan través, Spanish travieso and Portuguese travesso, and, contracted, Venetian treso.^[5][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record DELI gives is the adverbial phrase di traverso “crosswise, obliquely” in Dante (1300–13); GRADIT and Nocentini also date the word before 1313.^[4][6][5] The adjective “transverse, oblique” is in Boccaccio around 1336.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Already in Latin the word could be an adverb, as in Virgil's half-line venti transversa fremunt “the winds roar across (the ship)”.^[4] In Old Italian the adjective also meant hostile or harsh: Jacopone and Cavalca use it for something unbearable, and Boccaccio for adverse.^[11] Older senses now obsolete are “sturdy, stocky” and a traverso as a backhanded blow, in Berni.^[12][8]

The adverbial phrases spread early: per traverso “across” about 1350, andare di traverso figuratively “to go wrong” before 1484 in Pulci, and of food “to go down the wrong way” before 1558.^[4] Guardare a traverso, to look askance, is in Varchi (before 1565), and guardare di traverso in Tommaseo–Bellini; the sense “with ill will” is recorded in 1891.^[4] Via traversa, a side street, is recorded before 1579, and vie traverse “covert, unfair means” in 1875.^[4] The noun “width” is in Redi before 1698, and the nautical sense “beam, side of the ship” in Stratico in 1813.^[4]

The feminine traversa became a noun for a crossbeam (before 1348), a railway sleeper (1902) and the crossbar of a football goal (1953).^[4] From the phrase a traverso came attraverso, recorded from the late 13th century.^[5]

Timeline

• 1300–1313 – Dante uses di traverso.^[4]
• c. 1336 – Boccaccio uses the adjective.^[4]
• Before 1348 – Giovanni Villani uses traversa for a crossbeam.^[4]
• c. 1350 – Per traverso appears in the Italian translation of Crescenzi.^[4]
• Before 1484 – Luigi Pulci uses andare di traverso figuratively.^[4]
• Before 1565 – Benedetto Varchi uses guardare a traverso.^[4]
• Before 1579 – Via traversa is recorded in G. B. Adriani.^[4]
• Before 1698 – Francesco Redi uses the noun for width.^[4]
• 1813 – Stratico records the nautical sense.^[4]
• 1875 – Vie traverse “covert means” is recorded.^[4]
• 1953 – Traversa is recorded for the crossbar of a goal.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. transverse, oblique: running across from one side to the other;^[6][13][14] via traversa, a side street crossing a main one.^[6][13][14]
2. (figurative) In vie traverse: devious or unfair means of reaching an aim: ha avuto l'appalto per vie traverse.^[13][14][12]
3. (music) In flauto traverso, the transverse flute, held across the lips.^[13][15][16]
4. (uncommon) Of words, misunderstood or taken in the worst sense.^[6][13]
5. (obsolete) Hostile, adverse.^[12][16]

Noun

1. width: the extent of a body across its breadth.^[6][13][17]
2. In di traverso, per traverso: crosswise, obliquely;^[13][14][12] andare di traverso, of food, to go down the wrong way, and figuratively to go wrong;^[13][14][12] guardare di traverso, to look askance.^[13][14][12]
3. (nautical) The beam: the side of a ship amidships, and the direction at right angles to its length: vento al traverso.^[6][17][15]
4. (construction, railways) A crossbeam or sleeper, the same as traversa.^[13][17]
5. (agriculture) A small transverse bank in a rice field.^[6]

Word family

• traversa
• attraverso
• traversina
• traversone
• traversino
• intraversare
• traversamente

Related words

• trasverso
• traversare
• trasversale
• Latin trānsversus
• French travers

Usage notes

Traverso is also a form of the verb traversare.^[1][6] An obsolete noun traverso “crossing”, a deverbal of traversare, is recorded in Fazio degli Uberti and in Pietro Verri.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3877
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b 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. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1013
12. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse