Etymologically
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venti

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin vinti, a spoken form of Latin vīgintī (“twenty”).[2][3][1] DELI and Nocentini cite the classical form vīgintī.[4][5] The Late Latin form had a short ⟨i⟩, which gave Italian closed /e/.[2][6] The same word is French vingt, Occitan vint, Catalan vint, Spanish veinte, Portuguese vinte and Sardinian vinti; Romanian douăzeci is a new formation meaning “two tens”.[5][7]

The Latin numeral goes back to Proto-Italic *wīgentī, from Proto-Indo-European *dwi(h₁)dḱm̥ti (“two tens”), an old dual form made of Proto-Indo-European *dwi- (“two”) and a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥ (“ten”).[1][8][5][9] Its cognates include Ancient Greek ϝίκατι (wíkati) in Doric Greek, Avestan vīsaiti, Sanskrit विंशति (viṃśatí) and Old Irish fiche.[5][8][9] De Vaan reports Kortlandt's explanation of the unexpected voiced ⟨g⟩ of the Latin word, which spread from the words for “seventy” and “ninety”.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in a Florentine document of 1211.[10] DELI dates the number from the Fiore (13th–14th century) and GRADIT before 1310.[4][2]

Semantic evolution

DELI notes that the derivatives of venti are mostly popular, beside learned words built on the classical form, such as vigesimo.[4] It also doubts that the southern Italian use of ventina “score” reflects a counting system brought by the Normans.[4] In Siena the form was vinti, and a story told of Niccolò Andrea Borghesi has him asking beggars how much ten and ten make, giving two coins to those who answered vinti as true Sienese and one to those who said venti.[4]

As a noun, venti names the number and its sign (1879, Tommaseo), and le venti means eight in the evening (1922).[4] Compounds took on special senses: il ventisette, the day public employees were paid, and so their salary (1905),[4][5] and portare il cappello sulle ventitré, to wear one's hat tilted, from the time when hours were counted from sunset and in the twenty-third hour the sun was low.[5] English has borrowed venti.[1]

Timeline

  • 1211 – Venti appears in a Florentine document.[10]
  • 13th–14th century – The Fiore uses the number.[4]
  • 1300–1313 – Dante uses the ordinal ventesimo.[4]
  • 1879 – Tommaseo records venti as a noun for the number and its sign.[4]
  • 1905 – Il ventisette “payday” is recorded.[4]
  • 1922 – Le venti “eight in the evening” is recorded.[4]

Meanings

Numeral

  1. twenty: two tens (20, XX): Ho aspettato venti minuti.[2][3][11]
  2. In compound numbers: ventidue, centoventi.[2][12]
  3. An indefinite number, many or few according to the context: Gliel'ho chiesto venti volte.[2][3][11]
  4. After a noun, twentieth: la stanza venti.[2][3][12]

Noun

  1. The number twenty and its sign; a house number.[2][3][11]
  2. The twentieth day of the month; the year (19)20, gli anni Venti, the 1920s.[2][3][11]
  3. Le venti, eight o'clock in the evening.[11][12][13]
  4. A mark of twenty in an examination.[11][14]

Word family

  • ventennale
  • ventenne
  • ventennio
  • ventesimo
  • ventina
  • ventino
  • ventiquattro
  • ventiquattr'ore
  • ventisette
  • ventitré

Usage notes

Venti is elided before anni: vent'anni.[12][11][13] The number has a closed e.[6][1] The same spelling is also the plural of vento “wind”.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  7. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
  8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  12. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  14. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse