Etymologically
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uomo

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Pronunciation

Forms

uomo m (plural uomini, diminutive ométto or (regional) omarìno, augmentative ominóne or omóne, pejorative omàccio, diminutive-endearing omìno, derogatory omiciàttolo or (uncommon) omiciàtto or (rare) omicciàttolo or (rare) omicciàtto, diminutive-derogatory omicciòlo or (literary) omicciuòlo)[1] Old and popular forms are omo and uom, with the plurals òmini and òmeni.[2][1][3] Old Italian also had uono and on.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin homō (“human being, man”), continued in the nominative, while the plural ⟨uomini⟩ continues hominēs.[5][6][7][1] Few Latin nouns for persons survive in the nominative in Italian;[6] Nocentini names others such as mulier and latrō.[6] Friulian om, Romansh um and Romanian om also continue the nominative, while the other Romance languages continue the accusative hominem: French homme, Occitan ome, Catalan home, Spanish hombre, Portuguese homem and Sardinian ómine.[6][8] The nominative also gave an indefinite pronoun, “one”, in Old Italian ⟨omo⟩, French on and Old Occitan om.[6][8]

In Latin the word meant a human being as opposed to the gods, beside Latin vir (“male person”), but it began to replace ⟨vir⟩ for “man” in the imperial period.[5] De Vaan reconstructs a stem Proto-Italic *χe/om-on- and, with Nussbaum, Proto-Indo-European *dʰǵʰ(e)m-ōn “earthling”, derived from the word for earth found in Latin humus (“earth”).[9] Old Latin had a form hemō, kept in nēmō (“nobody”).[9][1] Related words for “man” are Oscan humuns, Gothic 𐌲𐌿𐌼𐌰 (guma), Lithuanian žmogus and Old Irish duine.[9][6] The link with ⟨humus⟩ was already made in antiquity: Quintilian mocked it, asking whether man was called ⟨homo⟩ because he was born from the earth, as though all animals did not have the same origin.[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini and GRADIT date the first record to 1219,[6][7] and Sabatini–Coletti finds the plural omini in the 12th century.[10] DELI's first dated sense is the adult male, in Brunetto Latini before 1294, and the human being in general is in Dante (1300–1313).[5]

Semantic evolution

Dante's “Uomini siate, e non pecore matte” (be men, and not mad sheep, Paradiso 5) uses the word for a human being endowed with reason.[5][11] Boccaccio has it for a worker or employee and for a husband, and a 14th-century translation of Livy for an armed man, a soldier; a sailor is uomo in Pantera in 1614.[5][3] As an indefinite pronoun, like French on, uom dice meant “people say” in the 13th and 14th centuries, and the word could mean “someone” or, in negative clauses, “no one”;[5][3] DELI notes that it never became fully grammatical.[5][3] Old Florentine ongnono and Sienese ogniuono “everyone” come from ogni uomo.[3]

Compounds borrowed or calqued from other languages followed: superuomo (1894) after German Übermensch, uomo rana (1949) after English frogman, uomo sandwich before 1915, and uomo della strada, a partly mistaken rendering of English the man in the street.[6][5] Uomo-massa comes from Ortega y Gasset's Spanish hombre-masa (1930).[5] English Polari took the word as omee, a man or a landlord, in 1859.[12]

Timeline

  • 12th century – The plural omini is recorded.[10]
  • 1219 – First record of the word.[6][7]
  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for an adult male.[5]
  • 1300–1313 – Dante uses it for the human being, and as a pronoun, “one”.[5]
  • 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses it for a worker or employee.[5]
  • 1614 – Uomo “sailor” in Pantero Pantera.[5]
  • 1859 – Polari omee is recorded in English.[12]
  • 1894 – Superuomo, a calque of German Übermensch.[6]
  • 1949 – Uomo rana “frogman”.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A human being, a person, as a being with reason and language, (anthropology) the species Homo sapiens.[7][13][14]
  2. mankind, the human species taken together: i diritti dell'uomo, l'uomo moderno.[7][13]
  3. A man, an adult male: un uomo sulla cinquantina, ormai è un uomo.[7][2][14]
  4. A man as having the qualities traditionally expected of one: comportati da uomo.[2][14]
  5. A worker, someone sent for a job: è arrivato l'uomo della caldaia.[7][5]
  6. (colloquial) A husband, partner or lover: è uscita con il suo uomo.[7][1]
  7. A member of a military unit, a crew or a team: una pattuglia di dieci uomini.[7][5]

Pronoun

  1. (archaic) One, anyone, people in general.[1][5]

Word family

  • ometto
  • omino
  • omone
  • omaccio
  • omaccione
  • omiciattolo
  • superuomo
  • gentiluomo
  • galantuomo
  • valentuomo

Usage notes

The plural is irregular: uomini.[7][2] Common phrases are da uomo a uomo (frankly, man to man), a memoria d'uomo (in living memory), a passo d'uomo (at walking pace), uomo d'affari (businessman) and uomo di paglia (front man).[7][2][1] Tommaseo notes that uomo is never three syllables in verse: in Dante the line is completed by a break between vowels, not by splitting the diphthong.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3955
  4. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1029
  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 e f g h i j k 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  11. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  12. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET