ungere

Forms

ungere (first-person singular present ùngo, first-person singular past historic ùnsi, past participle ùnto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The popular Tuscan and literary form is ugnere.^[2][3] Older spellings include Old Italian ognere, Old Italian ugnare and Old Italian unzere.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ungere (“to smear, to anoint”), a parallel form of the older unguere.^[5][6][7][1] Devoto explains the form without ⟨u⟩ by the perfect, which had none, on the model of iungō beside its perfect.^[8] From the past participle come unto and, through Church use, unzione.^[5] The present participle is the source of the Latin source of unguento.^[5]

The verb is found across Romance except in the Iberian Peninsula: French oindre, Occitan ogner, Sardinian ùnghere, Romanian unge and Dalmatian yongar.^[6][9][10] The DÉRom reconstructs a Proto-Romance verb for it, and treats Spanish ungir, Catalan ungir and Portuguese ungir as learned words that came in through the language of the Church, where they meant anointing for a blessing or consecration.^[10][6][11]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *ongʷ-e- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃engʷ- (“to anoint”).^[12][1] Related words in other branches name butter, such as Old Irish imb (“butter”) and Old High German ancho (“butter”), and Umbrian has umtu (“to anoint”).^[12] Nocentini and DEI compare the Sanskrit verb for “to anoint”.^[6][11]

Bembo noted in 1525 that ⟨ungi⟩ and ⟨ugni⟩, ⟨unge⟩ and ⟨ugne⟩ were both in use, and that the forms with ⟨n⟩ before ⟨g⟩ were the more Tuscan.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dante has only the past historic unse (before 1321) and the past participle unto (1300–1313), so his texts don't show which infinitive he used.^[5] The infinitive is first recorded as ugnere in the Italian translation of Crescenzi, about 1350, with the sense “to spread with oil or another fat”, and ungere before 1460 in Savonarola's De regimine.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb had a religious use.^[11] In the 14th century it meant consecrating a king, and Villani uses ugnere re for confirming someone as king by anointing.^[11][13] DEI records a figurative sense in Brunetto Latini, of smoothing someone or getting into his favour.^[11] Boccaccio's ugnere le mani meant bribing someone with money, and Treccani quotes his ugnersi il grifo, “to grease one's snout”, for eating at someone else's expense.^[13][2]

The modern dictionaries add the senses of staining with grease and of flattering (Petrocchi, 1891) and of greasing or lubricating a machine (Premoli, 1912).^[5] Today ungere le ruote is the usual phrase for bribing someone.^[7][14] Tommaseo noted that ugnere was still heard in the Tuscan countryside.^[15]

Among the derivatives, untore, the man believed to have spread the plague in Milan by smearing infected ointments on houses, became widely known through Manzoni's novel, with the cry dagli all'untore! and the monatto's povero untorello.^[5]

Timeline

• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the past participle unto.^[5]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses the past historic unse.^[5]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses unzione.^[5]
• About 1350 – The infinitive ugnere appears in the Italian Crescenzi.^[5]
• Before 1460 – Ungere appears in Savonarola's De regimine.^[5]
• 1525 – Bembo comments on the forms ungi and ugni.^[5]
• 1821–1823 – Manzoni writes of the untori of the Milan plague.^[5]
• 1891 – Petrocchi records the senses “stain with grease” and “flatter”.^[5]
• 1912 – Premoli records the sense “lubricate”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To smear or spread with oil, butter or another fat: ungere lo stampo con lo strutto.^{[7][3][16][1]}
2. To grease or lubricate a mechanism: ungere le cerniere del cancello.^[7][3][14]
3. To stain with grease, also without an object: è un olio che non unge.^[7][3][17]
4. (figurative) To bribe someone, or to flatter him for gain: ungere le ruote (to grease the wheels).^{[7][3][14][17]}
5. (religion) To anoint someone with consecrated oil to confer a religious or political dignity, or to give a sacrament.^{[7][3][16][2]}
6. (reflexive, ungersi) To rub oneself with a cream or oil, or to get grease on oneself or one's clothes.^[16][14][17]

Word family

• unguento
• unticcio
• untore
• untorello
• untume
• untuosità
• untuoso
• unzione
• unto
• disungere
• riungere
• ungimento
• ungitore
• ungitura

Related words

• untare
• untura
• Latin unguentum
• French oindre

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
3. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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 Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
11. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3951
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1028
14. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
16. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
17. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana