vendicare

Forms

vendicare (first-person singular present véndico or vèndico, first-person singular past historic vendicài, past participle vendicàto, auxiliary avére)^[1] An old past participle Old Italian vendico “avenged” is used by Fra Giordano and survives in rustic Tuscan.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vindicō (“to claim; to protect; to punish; to avenge”), a verb from vindex (“claimant, protector, avenger”) meaning “to act as a vindicator”.^[4][5][6][1] It was formed as iūdicō was from iūdex.^[7] The formation of the noun is not quite clear;^[4][1] Wiktionary analyses it as vim (“force”) and dīcō (“to say, indicate”).^[4][1] Like vindicta, the verb belonged to Roman law, where the sense “avenge” was secondary; it prevailed in Italian.^[4]

The word is pan-Romance: French venger, Occitan venjar, Catalan venjar, Spanish vengar, Portuguese vingar, Sardinian bindigare and Romanian vindeca (“to save; to heal”).^[5][8] DÉRom reconstructs Proto-Romance */ˈβɪndik-a-/ with two meanings: “to heal” in Romanian and Aromanian, “to avenge” in the centre and west of the Romance world.^[9] Latin short ⟨i⟩ became Italian ⟨e⟩.^[4][6]

Dante uses the verb only in verse, alongside the Gallicism vengiare, with no clear difference in meaning.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the verb to 1268;^[10][4] DELI's first records, around 1300, are in Bartolomeo da San Concordio and Dante, with the sense of making someone pay for a wrong or a crime by harming the offender.^[10][4]

Semantic evolution

In Old Italian the verb also meant “to punish”, chiefly of God, as in Boccaccio's dalla divina giustizia rigidamente la crudeltà vendicata (“cruelty severely punished by divine justice”), and “to pay, compensate”.^[6][11][2] Following its Latin sense “to claim” it could mean “to recover” or “to win for oneself”: Guicciardini writes that the Pisans si vendicò … in libertà, regained their freedom.^[11][12] These senses are now archaic, and rivendicare has taken over “to claim a right”.^[6][5]

The reflexive vendicarsi “to take one's revenge” is recorded before 1484, in Luigi Pulci.^[4] The noun vendetta comes from Latin vindicta and is first recorded around 1300.^[4][5]

Timeline

• 1268 – First record, according to Zingarelli.^[10]
• c. 1300 – Bartolomeo da San Concordio and Dante use the verb.^[4]
• 13th century – Vendicatore is recorded in translations of Gregory the Great and Livy.^[4]
• Before 1363 – Matteo Villani uses vendicativo.^[4]
• Before 1484 – Luigi Pulci uses the reflexive vendicarsi.^[4]
• 1865 – Tommaseo records vendicabile.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To avenge someone: to take revenge on their behalf: Giurò di vendicare il fratello.^[6][13][14]
2. To avenge a wrong, to revenge it by harming the offender: vendicare un'offesa, vendicare l'onore.^[6][13][10]
3. (archaic) To punish, especially of divine punishment.^[6][14][15]
4. (literary, archaic) To claim, recover a right; compare rivendicare.^[6][13][14]
5. vendicarsi (reflexive): to take one's revenge (di on an offence or offender, su on someone): Prima o poi si vendicherà del torto subito.^[13][15][10]

Word family

• vendicarsi
• vendicativo
• vendicabile
• vendichevole
• vendicanza
• rivendicare

Related words

• vendetta
• vendicatore
• vengianza
• vengiare
• vindice
• Latin vindicō
• French venger

Usage notes

The present is io véndico, tu véndichi, with the stress on the first syllable;^[10][13][1] Zingarelli and Wiktionary also allow an open è.^[10][13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4009
3. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1043
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
10. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
12. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse