villano

Forms

villano (feminine villana, masculine plural villani, feminine plural villane)^[1] Old forms include vilàm, vilanno and vilanó.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin villānus (“countryman, inhabitant of a country estate”), from Latin vīlla (“farm, country house”) with the suffix -ānus.^[3][4][5][1] DEI dates the Latin word to the 4th century, in Damasus, and compares silvānus.^[6] Devoto–Oli thinks that Dante's senses were probably influenced by French vilain.^[7]

The word belongs to Italy and the western Romance area: vilain, Catalan vilà, Spanish villano and Portuguese vilão, with Friulian vilan “clumsy” and in the Engadine vilaun.^[3][8][6] Old French also had vilonie for vilenie “baseness”, remodelled after felonie.^[8][6]

Latin villa goes back to Proto-Italic *weikslā, a noun from Proto-Indo-European *weyḱ- (“settlement”), and is related to Latin vīcus (“row of houses; village”).^[1][9] DELI calls it a diminutive of that word.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is the Ritmo laurenziano of the late 12th century, where the word means a man of low birth: Qa non fue questo villano (“this one was no base-born man”).^[4][2] The sense “countryman, peasant” is first dated to Dante (1300–1313), who also used the adjective for coarse, ill-mannered people.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the villano was the man who lived in the villa, the open country as against the town and the castle, as a serf bound to the land; the word then came to mean any countryman.^[10][2] Nocentini explains the scornful sense “boor” as a product of urban culture, which for centuries set the townsman, refined and educated, against the countryman, as later with cafone and pacchiano.^[3] The sense “coarse, uncivil person” is dated before 1484, in Pulci.^[4]

The love poets of the dolce stil novo set villano against gentile, of coarse feelings;^[7] Dante wrote Gitta nei cor villani Amore un gelo (“Love casts a frost upon base hearts”).^[7] In Dante the adjective could also mean “cruel”, as in Morte villana, di pietà nemica (“Cruel death, enemy of pity”).^[5][7][11] DEI lists the Old Italian senses “wicked” (Iacopone, 13th century) and “ugly, rough” (14th century).^[6]

Villano rifatto, a peasant or person of humble birth grown rich who keeps coarse manners, is in Oudin's dictionary of 1640.^[4] The sense “peasant” survives mainly in regional use and proverbs such as carta canta e villan dorme (“paper sings and the peasant sleeps”: a written agreement lets one rest easy).^[10][12] In Calabria veddanu seems to rest on a form vellanus, from the rustic vella for villa,^[6] which Varro already quotes as a country pronunciation.^[9]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Ritmo laurenziano uses villano for a man of low birth.^[4]
• 13th century – Villania (Iacopone) and villanesco (Guittone) are recorded.^[6]
• 1300–1313 – Dante uses the noun for a peasant and the adjective for ill-mannered.^[4]
• Before 1484 – Pulci uses the noun for a boorish person.^[4]
• c. 1540 – The villanella, a rustic song, appears.^[13]
• 1640 – Oudin records villano rifatto.^[4]
• 1879 – Villanata is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. rude, ill-mannered, uncivil, of a person: Non essere villano con tua zia.^[5][7][14]
2. Of words or behaviour: coarse, offensive.^[5][7][15]
3. (archaic, literary) Cruel, merciless.^[5][7][11]

Noun

1. (derogatory) A rude, ill-mannered person; a boor, lout.^{[5][7][14][1]}
2. (archaic, literary) A peasant, countryman; in the Middle Ages, a serf.^{[5][7][10][1]}

Word family

• villania
• villanesco
• villanella
• villanello
• villaneggiare
• svillaneggiare
• villanzone
• villanata
• villanamente

Related words

• villa
• French vilain
• Latin villanus

Usage notes

Villano rifatto, rivestito or ripulito is a person who has risen in the world but kept coarse ways.^[5][7][12] The proverb scherzo di mano, scherzo da villano says that rough horseplay is for boors.^[11][15] Separate obsolete words villano named a kind of cloak, recorded from the 14th century,^[6][16] and a breed of Spanish horses in Ariosto.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4054
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1054
14. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET