troppo

Forms

troppo (feminine troppa, masculine plural troppi, feminine plural troppe)^[1] Old forms include trop, tropo and troppu.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French trop (“much; too much”), recorded in French from about 1050.^[3][4][5][6] Nocentini traces the French word to Frankish *þorp (“cluster of people, village”), through Medieval Latin troppus (“flock, herd”), which became an adjective meaning “much” and then “in excess”.^[7][1] The Medieval Latin noun is found in the 8th-century Lex Alamannorum.^[8][9] The Frankish word continues Proto-Germanic *þurpą (“village”), the source of German Dorf and English thorp.^[7][1] The same source gave truppa, through French troupe.^[3][7][9]

The link is not certain.^[9][7] Meyer-Lübke noted that the Germanic word is matched by an Old English word for “village”, but that a sense “crowd, quantity” is not found in Germanic, and rejected a derivation from Latin turba.^[9] Prati called the French word of unclear origin.^[10] Zaccaria reports the earlier proposals of Storm and Bugge, who also started from the Germanic word for “village”.^[11][12] Wiktionary takes the Germanic noun back to Proto-Indo-European *treb- (“dwelling”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word first appears in the Genoese part of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras's bilingual Contrasto, from before about 1207, in the line per qe trop me deschazei.^[3] In Italian prose it is in Guido Faba in 1239–1240.^[3][4] Its first meaning was “much”, “very”.^[3][13]

Semantic evolution

Old French trop had both senses, “much” and “too much”.^[3] In Italian the older sense “much, many” lasted into the 14th century: Dante writes qui vid’i’ gente più ch’altrove troppa, “here I saw people, more than elsewhere, very many”.^[3][14][4] With Boccaccio the meaning “excessive” took over, and this is the sense of the modern word.^[3][13]

The adverb, “too much, more than is right”, appears in the Fiore around 1300, and Dante uses il troppo, “what is in excess”, as a noun.^[3][15] Proverbs warn against excess: ogni troppo è troppo.^[15] Di troppo, “more than is due”, was recorded as a neologism in 1886.^[3] Troppopieno, an overflow pipe, copies French trop-plein and is first recorded in 1949.^[3]

As a musical direction, ma non troppo “but not too much”, the word passed into French, German (1802) and English (20th century).^[16]

Timeline

• About 1050 – Old French trop is recorded.^[3]
• Before about 1207 – Trop appears in the Genoese part of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras's Contrasto.^[3]
• 1239–1240 – Guido Faba uses the word for “much”.^[3][4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses il troppo as a noun.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses troppo for “excessive”, the modern sense.^[3]
• 1802 – German takes troppo as a musical term.^[16]
• 1886 – Di troppo is listed among neologisms.^[3]
• 1949 – Troppopieno, an overflow, is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Determiner

1. too much, too many; more than is needed or right: Hai messo troppo pepe nel sugo.^[4][5][6]
2. (literary) Much, very many, without the idea of excess.^[4][6][14]

Pronoun

1. Too much, too many: Di biscotti ne ho mangiati troppi.^[4][6]
2. In the plural, too many people: erano in troppi.^[4][5][14]
3. In the masculine singular, too much time, money or effort, as the context shows: Ho aspettato troppo.^[4][5]

Adverb

1. Too, too much, excessively: Questa minestra è troppo salata.^[4][14][17]
2. In negative sentences, very, much: non sto troppo bene.^[17][18]
3. troppo buono, troppo gentile: polite (or ironic) formulas of thanks.^[14][17]

Noun

1. il troppo: what is in excess.^[3][15]

Word family

• purtroppo
• troppopieno

Related words

• truppa
• French trop
• German Dorf

Usage notes

Pur troppo or purtroppo means “unfortunately”;^[4][10] Prati first finds it in Annibale Caro.^[4][10] Questo è troppo! expresses indignation at something that goes beyond what can be borne, and troppa grazia! says that one has got more than one wished for.^[4][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 410
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
7. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 455
9. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1019
11. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
12. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
13. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti
14. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
18. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli