troncare

Forms

troncare (first-person singular present trónco, first-person singular past historic troncài, past participle troncàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An older spelling is Old Italian truncare.^[2][3][4] The past participle has a short form tronco beside troncato.^[3][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin truncō (“to lop off, maim”), a verb formed from the adjective truncus (“maimed, lopped”).^{[6][7][8][9][1]} DEI places the Latin verb in Italy and the western Romance area.^[2] The same verb is Sardinian truncare, Occitan troncar, Catalan troncar, Spanish troncar and Portuguese troncar.^[6][10][2] French tronquer (14th century) is a later borrowing.^[2]

According to de Vaan, the oldest sense of the Latin word was the adjective “maimed, robbed of its branches or head”, though the noun “trunk, torso” and the compound verbs are attested earlier.^[11] He sees no compelling reason to connect it with Germanic and Baltic verbs meaning “to push”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in Brunetto Latini, who died in 1294, with the sense to break something off with a sharp, violent blow.^[12][6] In the Tesoro he tells how, when someone tronca la gamba (breaks the leg) of a young oriole, the bird fetches a herb to heal it.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb meant cutting off cleanly, above all a limb or the head: the Fatti di Cesare has a warrior who troncava braccia, spezzava elmi (“lopped off arms, broke helmets”).^[3] In Dante the suicides' wood bleeds when a twig is snapped off: Se tu tronchi / qualche fraschetta d'una d'este piante.^[4] The figurative sense “to cut short, break off” is in Petrarch (1374), and Leon Battista Alberti applied the verb to the shortening of words in grammar around 1438.^[12] Poetic usage also had “to behead”, as in Ariosto's troncando i sudditi.^[7][13]

Tommaseo distinguished troncare from the stronger stroncare, which implies more violence.^[4] The senses “to deprive of a part” and “to exhaust, wear out” are dated by DELI from 1891.^[12] In mathematics the verb now also means to truncate a decimal number.^[7]

Timeline

• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses troncare for breaking off with a violent blow.^[12]
• 14th century – Troncamento is recorded in the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi.^[2][6]
• 1374 – Petrarch uses the verb figuratively, “to break off abruptly”.^[12]
• c. 1438 – Leon Battista Alberti uses it in grammar, for shortening a word.^[12]
• 18th century – Troncatura is recorded (Salvini).^[2][6]
• 1891 – The senses “to deprive of a part” and “to exhaust” are recorded.^[12]
• 1973 – Troncatrice, a cutting machine, is first recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sever, cut off: to break or cut a part off cleanly from the main body, such as a branch or a limb.^[7][14][8]
2. To deprive something of one of its parts, to mutilate.^[7][14][8]
3. (archaic) To behead.^[7][14][15]
4. To cut through with a single clean stroke: troncare una corda.^[7][14]
5. (figurative) To exhaust, wear out physically: troncare le gambe “to tire the legs out”, also “to stop someone reaching a goal”.^[7][14][16]
6. (figurative) To break off abruptly and for good, such as a friendship or relations.^[7][8][15]
7. (linguistics) To shorten a word by troncamento, to apocopate.^[7][8][1]
8. (mathematics) To truncate a decimal number, dropping the digits after a given place.^[7]

Word family

• troncamento
• troncatura
• troncatrice
• troncatore
• troncabile
• troncato
• stroncare
• tronchetto

Related words

• tronchese
• tronco
• Latin truncus

Usage notes

The phrase troncare le parole in bocca means to interrupt someone before they finish speaking.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3914
3. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
4. ^ a b c d Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
6. ^ a b c d e f 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ 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 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
15. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana