Etymologically
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vicino

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Pronunciation

  • /viˈt͡ʃi.no/[1]

Forms

vicino (feminine vicina, masculine plural vicini, feminine plural vicine, superlative vicinissimo)[1] As a noun “neighbour”: vicino m, plural vicini, feminine vicina.[1] Old Italian had vecino, and northern texts vesino, vexino and veximo.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin vēcīnus, inherited from Latin vīcīnus (“of the same village; neighbour”).[1][3][4] The Latin adjective, formed from vīcus (“village, street”), meant “belonging to the same ⟨vicus⟩”, and was already used as a noun in Latin.[4][5][6] The form with ⟨e⟩ is attested in Servius and in an Italian document of 715 and is probably due to dissimilation of the two vowels;[1][3] Meyer-Lübke derives from it the Italian word and most of the Romance ones, and only Sardinian bighinu from the classical form.[1][3]

The word is found in every Romance language: Romanian vecin, French voisin, Occitan vezin, Catalan vehí, Spanish vecino and Portuguese vizinho.[7][3] The Latin noun vīcus is Proto-Italic *weiko- (“settlement”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *ueiḱ- (“settlement”), also in Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house”).[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nocentini and Devoto–Oli date the word to the beginning of the 13th century.[7][5] DELI's first record of the noun “neighbour” is in Brunetto Latini, before 1294, and of the adjective “near” in Dante, 1300–1313.[4]

Semantic evolution

In Dante the adjective already meant both “near” and “close to one another”; the sense “imminent” is in Tasso (1581), and the figurative “similar” in Tommaseo's dictionary (1879).[4] Old Italian also used the noun for a fellow citizen and for the inhabitants of a district.[9][10] The adverb “near, close by” is dated by DELI to 1810, though DEI finds adverb and preposition in the 14th century.[4][11]

Medieval Latin ⟨vicinantia⟩ and ⟨vicinata⟩, from the same stem, survive in place names of the Alps and in dialect words for an assembly of the villagers, and vicinia (1572) named a rural community of the Middle Ages.[4][7][3]

Timeline

  • Early 13th century – First records of the word.[7][5]
  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses vicino “neighbour”.[4]
  • 1300–1313 – Dante uses the adjective “near”.[4]
  • 1581 – Tasso uses it for “imminent”.[4]
  • 1810 – The adverb “close by” is recorded in Milan.[4]
  • 1879 – Tommaseo records the sense “similar”.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. near, close, at a short distance: un villaggio vicino, vicino a “near to”.[10][5][1]
  2. Imminent, approaching: Il Natale è vicino.[10][5]
  3. Close to reaching a state or doing something: essere vicino ai sessanta.[10][5]
  4. (figurative) Close in idea or feeling; supportive: Mi sei stato molto vicino.[10]
  5. Closely related: Siamo parenti vicini..[10]
  6. Similar, akin: un verde vicino al grigio.[10][4]

Noun

  1. neighbour, vicino di casa “next-door neighbour”.[10][1]
  2. The person next to one: il mio vicino di posto.[10]
  3. (literary) A fellow citizen.[10]

Adverb

  1. Near, close by: Abito qui vicino.[10][1]

Word family

  • vicinanza
  • vicinato
  • vicinale
  • vicinia
  • viciniore
  • avvicinare
  • avvicinamento
  • ravvicinare
  • circonvicino

Usage notes

Vicino a works as a preposition (vicino alla stazione), and da vicino means “at close range”.[10][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 852
  3. ^ a b c d e Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  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 Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1053
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  11. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4048