ventoso

Forms

ventoso (feminine ventosa, masculine plural ventosi, feminine plural ventose)^[1]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin ventōsus (“windy”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin adjective is formed from ventus (“wind”) with the suffix -ōsus.^[4][1][6] In Italian it can be read as vento with the suffix -oso.^[1] Wiktionary compares Piedmontese ventus.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Zingarelli dates the word to 1279;^[2][5] GRADIT gives before 1311.^[2][5] Among the early texts, Giamboni says that a red moon shows tempo ventoso, windy weather, and Giordano da Pisa that high places are windier.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used it of windy weather and seasons and of places exposed to the wind, and Petrarch has ventosa pioggia, rain driven by the wind.^[3][7][8] Of food, it meant causing wind in the bowels, a sense Zingarelli marks as obsolete and other dictionaries as uncommon.^[2][9][8] Figuratively it came to mean puffed up, conceited, of people, and empty, bombastic, of words and fame.^[5][2] Zingarelli also records an obsolete sense “swift as the wind”.^[2]

Timeline

• 1279 – First record according to Zingarelli.^[2]
• Before 1311 – Date of first record in GRADIT.^[5]
• 1798 – ventoso is first recorded as the name of the French Republican month.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the wind: moto ventoso.^[5][9][10]
2. windy, swept by the wind, of a place: un altopiano ventoso.^[5][8][2]
3. Windy, with much wind, of a day or season: Ottobre è stato molto ventoso.^[5][9][10]
4. (uncommon) Causing flatulence, of food.^[5][9][8]
5. (figurative, literary) conceited, pompous, of a person; empty and bombastic, of speech, fame or honours.^[5][9][2]

Word family

• ventosità
• ventosamente

Related words

• vento

Usage notes

As a masculine noun, ventoso is also the Italian name of Ventôse, the sixth month of the French Republican calendar, from about 19 February to 20 March.^[2][8] It is a later borrowing of French ventôse, the name Fabre d'Églantine coined in 1793 from the same Latin word, and is recorded in Italian from 1798.^{[2][8][11][9]}

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 j k l Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
3. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21
4. ^ a b 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 De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4013