Etymologically
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vendetta

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Pronunciation

  • /venˈdet.ta/[1]

Forms

vendetta f (plural vendette)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vindicta (“claim; liberation; vengeance; punishment”), a derivative of vindicō (“to lay claim to; to avenge”), from vindex (“defender, champion; avenger”).[2][3][1] The Latin noun first named the rod with which a slave was touched when he was set free, and so came to mean the act of liberation and the assertion of a right; the sense of revenge and punishment came later.[4][5][6] DELI notes that the Latin noun, like the verb, belonged to the language of Roman law, with senses far from the one that prevailed in Italian.[7] The Oxford Latin Dictionary explains the noun as probably a back-formation from the legal phrase vim dictam, “force (that is, ownership) asserted”,[8] while Devoto saw it as the feminine past participle of a supposed Latin *vindicere used as a noun.[9]

DEI counts the word as Italian and Spanish only, with Old Spanish vendecha in Old Spanish.[10] The verb vendicare continues the Latin verb, and its relatives in the other Romance languages are French venger, Occitan venjar, Spanish vengar, Portuguese vingar and Romanian vindeca “to save, to heal”.[2] The Latin short /i/ became /e/, and ⟨ct⟩ became ⟨tt⟩.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, around 1300, are in Bartolomeo da San Concordio and in the Fiore, with the sense of a harm done to someone in return for a wrong suffered;[7] Dante has far vendetta di, to take revenge for.[7]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word also meant the punishment that God inflicts: Dante uses it so, and the souls in Purgatory are struck by la divina vendetta.[7][5] The commentator Francesco da Buti (before 1406) defined revenge as inflicting a penalty to satisfy anger.[7][11] The religious sense lives on in gridare vendetta, of a crime that calls out for punishment (1686, Segneri, after esclamare vendetta in Pulci), and in il giorno della vendetta, the Day of Judgement (1673).[7][6] In poetry it could mean persecution, as in Foscolo.[3][12]

In the 20th century Panzini recorded vendetta corsa (1931), the sworn feud of Corsica.[10] It was from Corsica that the word went into French, recorded from 1788 (also as vendette and vindette), and, from there into English, where Etymonline dates the blood feud to 1846 and the OED to 1855.[13][10][14] German has Vendetta for the blood feud from 1865.[13] Modern Italian has vendetta trasversale, revenge taken on the relatives of the offender, typical of the Mafia.[6][15]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – Bartolomeo da San Concordio and the Fiore use vendetta.[7]
  • 1300–1313 – Dante uses far vendetta di.[7]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses vendetta for divine punishment.[7]
  • Before 1484 – Luigi Pulci writes esclamare vendetta.[7]
  • 1673 – Paolo Segneri calls the Day of Judgement il giorno di vendetta.[7]
  • 1686 – Segneri uses gridare vendetta.[7]
  • 1788 – French vendetta is first recorded.[13]
  • 1846 – English vendetta “blood feud”, after Etymonline.[14]
  • 1865 – German Vendetta is recorded.[13]
  • 1931 – Panzini records vendetta corsa.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. revenge, vengeance: harm done to someone to get satisfaction for a wrong or a loss suffered: Ha aspettato anni per la sua vendetta.[3][4][5]
  2. Punishment, especially the just punishment inflicted by God: la vendetta divina.[3][5][12]
  3. (poetic) persecution.[3][12]

Usage notes

Common phrases are giurare vendetta, to swear revenge, vendetta trasversale, and the proverb la vendetta è un piatto che va servito freddo.[4][3] The pejorative is vendettaccia and the diminutive vendettuccia.[6][10]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  3. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  6. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  10. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4009
  11. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  12. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  13. ^ a b c d Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli