ubriaco

Forms

ubriaco (feminine ubriaca, masculine plural ubriachi, feminine plural ubriache)^[1] Tuscan has briaco and regional Italian imbriaco;^[2][2][3] ubbriaco is recorded from the 16th to the 19th century.^[2][2][3] Old forms include ebriaco and obriaco.^[3] Northern varieties have Venetian imbriago.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin ēbriācus (“intoxicated”), a derivative of Latin ēbrius (“drunk”), the source of ebbro.^[4][2][5][1] The Latin word is first found in the mime writer Laberius in the 1st century BC.^[4][3] DELI notes that the suffix -ācus also appears in merācus (“undiluted”), from merum (“pure wine”), which weakens the idea that it was a mock personal name;^[4] Schulze thought it arose in the spoken Latin of northern Italy, where surnames in ⟨-acum⟩ were common.^[4]

The word lives on in almost all Romance languages except Romanian: Old French ivrai, Old Occitan ebriac, Catalan embriac and Old Spanish embriago.^[3][2][6] Only in Italy, southern France and Catalan does it remain current;^[3] French uses ivre, the outcome of the simple adjective.^[3] The Italian initial ⟨u-⟩ comes from the unstressed vowel before the labial consonant, through stages ⟨e-⟩, ⟨o-⟩.^[2][4] The weak initial syllable dropped in Tuscan briaco, or was strengthened with a nasal in imbriaco.^[4]

ēbrius goes back to Proto-Italic *ēχwrio- and is derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₁egʷʰ- (“to drink”), with the same development of ⟨-gʷʰr-⟩ to ⟨-br-⟩ as in febris.^[7][1] The root is also in Ancient Greek νήφω (nḗphō, “to be sober”), originally “not to drink”, and in the Hittite verb for “to drink”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The LEI's first record is a Florentine text, the Fiore di rettorica, before 1292.^[3] DELI and GRADIT date the word to Boccaccio's Decameron of 1348–1353, in the sense “drunk”.^[4][5] Bono Giamboni advises not to tell a secret a ubbriaco, né a mala femina (“to a drunk, nor to a wicked woman”).^[8]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense “so excited that one's judgement is clouded” is found in Baldelli in 1549 and in Paolo Segneri in 1686; the modern phrases are ubriaco d'amore and ubriaco di felicità.^[3][4][5] The noun “a drunk person” is recorded in Varchi in 1554, as ubbriaco.^[4]

The derivatives ubriachezza “drunkenness” (about 1470, Alberti) and ubriacone “drunkard” followed, and the verb ubriacarsi “to get drunk” is in Florio's dictionary of 1598.^[3][4] The phrase ubriaco fradicio, “soaking drunk”, is shared with the dialects.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 1st century BC – Latin ebriacus is used by Laberius.^[4][3]
• Before 1292 – Florentine ubriaco is recorded in the Fiore di rettorica.^[3]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses ubriaco in the Decameron.^[4][5]
• About 1470 – Ubriachezza is used by Leon Battista Alberti.^[3]
• 1554 – Benedetto Varchi uses ubbriaco as a noun.^[4]
• 1598 – Ubriacarsi appears in John Florio's dictionary.^[4]
• 1686 – Paolo Segneri uses it for “carried away, intoxicated by a feeling”.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. drunk, intoxicated by alcohol: Dopo tre bicchieri era già ubriaco.^[5][9][10]
2. (figurative) Dazed, stunned: ubriaco di stanchezza.^[5][9][10]
3. (figurative) Carried away by a strong feeling: ubriaco di gioia.^[5][9][10]

Noun

1. A drunk, a drunken person; also a drunkard: Un ubriaco cantava sotto le finestre.^[9][10][1]

Word family

• ubriacare
• ubriachezza
• ubriacatura
• ubriacone
• ubriachesco

Related words

• ebbro
• ebrezza
• sobrio
• Latin ebrius

Usage notes

Ubriaco fradicio means “dead drunk”.^[5][9] The proverb volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca, literally “to want a full barrel and a drunk wife”, is listed by GRADIT.^[5] The literary synonym is ebbro, and colloquial ones are sbronzo and regional ciucco.^[10][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 21, 13
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse