vaso

Forms

vaso m (plural vasi, diminutive vasétto or vasettìno or (familiar, used in reference to babies) vasìno, augmentative vasóne, derogatory vasùccio)^[1] The old and literary form is vase,^[2][3][4] and old texts have the plural le vasa beside vasi.^[5][4][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vāsum (“vessel, container”), an archaic and popular variant of classical vās, which was used mostly in the plural vāsa (“vessels; baggage; tools”); the singular was remade from that plural.^[7][8][3][9] Classical Latin already declined the plural in the second declension.^[9] The old form vase took its ending from the third-declension nouns.^[3]

The word is pan-Romance: Occitan vas, Catalan vas, Spanish vaso, Portuguese vaso, Sardinian vasu and Romanian vas;^[8][10] French vase is learned.^[8][10] Some dialects narrowed it: Old Lombard vaxo meant “tomb”, and Abruzzese vese “udder”.^[10]

The Latin word has no good etymology beyond Proto-Italic *wāss-; its only clear cognate is Umbrian vasor (“vessels”).^[11][8] The Umbrian word has led scholars to see a borrowing from another Italic language, which would explain why the /s/ between vowels did not become /r/.^[8] Nocentini goes further and tentatively derives it from an older form with initial /l/, comparing Old Irish lestar (“vessel”) and the root Proto-Indo-European *les- (“to gather”) of Lithuanian lesti and Old High German lesan, but this is only a proposal;^[8][12] Devoto found no connections outside Italy.^[8][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Guittone d'Arezzo, who died before 1294, in the sense of a round container of terracotta, glass or metal.^[7][13] One of his letters contrasts vessels of earth and of gold: “Vasa di terra pregio portano e pro; e vasa d'auro prendon dannaggio e onta” (earthen vessels bring worth and profit, and golden ones suffer harm and shame).^[6]

Semantic evolution

The anatomical sense, a tube that carries blood or lymph, is recorded in Giordano da Pisa's sermons of 1305–06: “Vaso chiamano le veni che sono nel corpo, però che sono vasi ove sta il sangue” (they call vessels the veins in the body, since they are vessels in which the blood is held).^[7] Through the Greek of the Bible, the Vulgate uses Latin “vas” for any container and even for a tool, and Italian followed it in phrases such as vaso d'elezione, the chosen vessel, said of Saint Paul.^[7][5][14] In the 14th century the word also meant the female sex.^[14]

Later senses were technical: in botany a channel that carries sap (1805),^[7] in shipbuilding the timbers on which a ship is launched,^[14][3] and in the 19th century a glass jar for preserved food (1842, with vasetti already in 1815).^[7] The dialects of Trentino and Treviso use it for a beehive, a sense found already in Columella and the Salic law.^[14][10] From the late 19th century vaso- became a prefix of medical words such as vasomotore (1875) and vasodilatatore, alongside English vasoconstrictor (1877).^[7]

Italian vaso was borrowed into Greek as βάζο (vázo), into Ottoman Turkish, whence vazo, and into Polish as wazon.^[1]

Timeline

• Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses vaso for a container.^[7]
• 1305–1306 – Giordano da Pisa calls the veins vasi.^[7]
• 14th century – Vasaio, a potter, is recorded.^[7][8]
• 1354 – Vasellame, tableware, is recorded in Passavanti.^[7]
• 1805 – The botanical sense appears in D'Alberti's dictionary.^[7]
• 1842 – Vaso is recorded for a glass jar for food.^[7]
• 1875 – The medical prefix appears in vaso-motore.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vessel or vase of any shape and material, for holding liquids or loose substances or for decoration: Sullo scaffale c'era un vaso cinese di porcellana.^[13][3][2]
2. A vase for cut flowers, kept in water.^[13]
3. A flowerpot filled with soil, for growing plants.^[13][15]
4. A jar, usually of glass, for preserving food or other products: un vaso di olive.^[13][5]
5. A jarful, the quantity a jar holds.^[13][15]
6. A chamber pot; also the toilet bowl.^[13][5][3]
7. (literary) A place where something is gathered; a receptacle, also figuratively.^[3]
8. (anatomy) A blood vessel or other duct carrying a body fluid: vaso sanguigno.^[3][7]
9. (botany) A channel through which sap circulates in a plant.^[3][7]
10. (architecture) The bell of a Corinthian capital, covered with acanthus leaves.^[3]
11. (nautical) Each of the two heavy timbers of the cradle on which a ship slides at its launch.^[3]

Word family

• vasaio
• vasetto
• vasino
• vasello
• vasellame
• vasale
• vasocostrittore
• vasodilatatore
• vasomotore
• svasare
• travasare
• travaso
• invasare
• sottovaso

Related words

• vassoio
• Latin vās
• French vase

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include vaso da notte (chamber pot), vaso di Pandora (a source of every evil), vaso di coccio (a weak person among strong ones, from Aesop's fable of the earthen pot among iron pots), and portare vasi a Samo, to bring something where it already abounds, since Samos was famous for its pottery.^[5][2][9] La goccia che fa traboccare il vaso is the last straw.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 f g h i j k Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
5. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
10. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ 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 Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 464
13. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3994
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli