vecchio

Forms

vecchio (feminine vecchia, masculine plural vecchi, feminine plural vecchie, superlative vecchissimo, diminutive (meaning “beginning to get old” referring to people; derogatory when referring to things) vecchìno or vecchiétto or vecchiettìno, augmentative vecchiòtto, pejorative vecchiàccio, diminutive-derogatory vecchiùccio)^[1] Old and dialect forms include Old Italian veckio, Old Italian vechio, Old Italian veclo, Old Italian vegio and Old Italian veglo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin veclus, the spoken form of Latin vetulus (“elderly, rather old”), a diminutive of vetus (“old”).^[2][4][5][1] The Appendix Probi of the 5th century warns against the popular form with the rule “vetulus non veclus”: the unusual cluster /tl/ of the syncopated form had been replaced by the commoner /kl/.^[2][4][6] Like many words of familiar speech, the diminutive soon lost its diminutive force;^[2][4] Nocentini notes that it was first used of the age of animals.^[2][4] The plain adjective vetus survives in place names, above all in the south, and the spread of the diminutive in Italy was a fairly late Tuscan innovation, as Paul Aebischer showed from medieval charters.^[2]

The same word is French vieil, Occitan vielh, Catalan vell, Spanish viejo, Portuguese velho, Dalmatian vieklo and Romanian vechi.^[4][7] The Old Italian words veglio and vegliardo are later borrowings of the French and Occitan forms of the same Latin word.^[8][7]

Latin vetus goes back to Proto-Italic *wetos- (“year”), a noun, from Proto-Indo-European *wétos (“year”); the sense shifted from “year” to “having many years”.^[9][1] Related words are Ancient Greek ἔτος (étos, “year”), Sanskrit वत्सर (vatsará, “year”) and Old Church Slavonic ветъхъ (vetŭxŭ, “old”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the form veckio in an account book of Florentine bankers of 1211, in the sense “of former times, of an earlier period”, the date GRADIT gives for the word.^[2][5] The sense “of a person who has lived many years” is in Brunetto Latini, before 1294.^[2]

Semantic evolution

By the early 14th century the adjective covered most of its modern range.^[2] It meant “worn out by long use” in the Sienese statute of the gabelle (1301–1303), “ancient” and, as a noun, “old person” in Dante, and in the Italian Crescenzi (about 1350) “that has existed for a long time” and, of crops, “from the previous year”.^[2] Dante's tailor squints at the eye of his needle: “come ’l vecchio sartor fa ne la cruna” (as the old tailor does at the needle's eye).^[3] Filippo Villani, before 1405, uses it after a name to tell an elder namesake from a younger one, as in Plinio il Vecchio.^[2][5]

The plural i vecchi meant “the ancients, our forebears” in Vincenzo Borghini (before 1580) and “one's parents” from Rigutini and Fanfani's dictionary of 1875.^[2] The derivatives date from the same centuries: vecchiezza (about 1300) gave way to vecchiaia (before 1535, Berni), which Prati derived from a Late Latin *vetularia, and vecchiume, a heap of old things, is recorded in the 15th century.^[2] Dante once used the French loan vegliezza “old age”.^[2] English has used vecchio as a noun, “old man”, since about 1570.^[10]

Timeline

• 1211 – Veckio appears in the account book of Florentine bankers.^[2][5]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it of an aged person.^[2]
• About 1300 – Vecchiezza “old age” is first recorded.^[2]
• 1301–1303 – The Sienese gabelle statute uses it for worn-out things.^[2]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses it for “ancient” and as a noun, “old person”.^[2]
• Before 1405 – Filippo Villani uses it for the elder of two namesakes.^[2]
• Before 1535 – Francesco Berni uses vecchiaia.^[2]
• About 1570 – English first records vecchio “old man”.^[10]
• 1875 – I vecchi “one's parents” is recorded by Rigutini and Fanfani.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. old, elderly: of a person in the last part of life; also of animals and plants: Il vecchio pastore conosceva ogni sentiero.^[5][11][6]
2. Older than someone else, in comparisons; after a famous name, the elder of two namesakes (Catone il Vecchio).^[5][11][6]
3. Having been in a condition or role for a long time; long-standing: Siamo vecchi compagni di scuola.^[5][12]
4. Experienced, seasoned in a field: un vecchio lupo di mare.^[5][12]
5. former, previous, replaced by something newer: Il vecchio direttore è andato in pensione.^[5][12]
6. Dating from long ago, ancient; of other times, as opposed to new: il centro vecchio della città.^[5][6][13]
7. Worn by use, shabby; outdated, old-fashioned.^[5][14][1]
8. Of food and drink, aged or seasoned; of crops, from the previous year.^[12][2]

Noun

1. An old man or woman, i vecchi, old people.^[5][13][1]
2. (colloquial, plural) One's parents.^[2][13]
3. (singular) What is old, outworn or out of date.^[2][12]

Word family

• vecchiaia
• vecchiezza
• vecchietto
• vecchierello
• vecchiotto
• vecchione
• vecchiume
• vecchiardo
• invecchiare
• invecchiamento
• svecchiare
• stravecchio

Related words

• veglio
• vegliardo
• vieto
• Latin vetus

Usage notes

A separate obsolete noun vecchio survives only in vecchio marino “seal”, from Late Latin vitulus marinus “sea calf”, through a Vulgar Latin form *vitlus;^{[5][11][14][7][1]} GRADIT dates it before 1484, and Luigi Pulci has “e il marin vecchio fuor dell'acqua uscia” (and the seal came out of the water).^{[5][11][14][7][1]} The comparisons vecchio come il cucco and vecchio come Matusalemme both mean “very old”.^[5][11]

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 f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 689
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
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 Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1040
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
14. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli