venagione

Forms

venagione f (plural venagioni)^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vēnātiō (“hunting, the chase”), through its accusative.^[4][3][1] The Latin noun is formed from vēnor (“to hunt”) with the suffix -tiō.^[1][5] It is a doublet of the learned venazione, which the TLIO treats as the same word, with this spelling among its forms.^[6][7]

The same Latin word survives in Occitan and Portuguese, and in Old French venaison, recorded in the 12th century, which DEI and the Battaglia dictionary compare.^[8][6][9]

De Vaan explains the verb as a denominative from a noun or adjective meaning “hunt” or “hunting”, from the root Proto-Indo-European *wenh₁- (“to desire”), also seen in venus.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the word to 1304–1308, to Dante's Convivio, where fishing is said to fall under the art of hunting, sotto l'arte de la venagione.^[4][6] Old Italian texts have it among many forms of venazione, which the TLIO first records in 1268.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Besides the activity, the word soon meant the game itself: the Italian translation of Seneca's letters, of the 14th century, speaks of pieces of venagione set out on the table.^[8][11] This sense lived on in Machiavelli, who describes lakes and places full of venagione d'ogni sorte, and in Lodovico Guicciardini.^[6] The old dialect poem Rainardo e Lesengrino has the form venason.^[6] Tommaseo already marks the word as obsolete, and modern dictionaries list it as archaic and literary, with the meaning “hunting”.^[11][2][3]

Timeline

• 1268 – The TLIO's first record of the word, as venazione.^[7]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses venagione in the Convivio.^[4]
• 1300s – The Italian Seneca uses it for hunted game.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic, literary) hunting, the chase.^[4][2][12]
2. (archaic) Hunted game; venison in the old sense of any animal taken in hunting.^[13][6]

Related words

• venazione
• venatore
• cacciagione
• Latin vēnor
• French venaison

Usage notes

venazione is a variant of the same word.^[3][14]

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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 724
7. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4007
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
12. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
14. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli