vogare

Forms

vogare (first-person singular present vógo or vògo, first-person singular past historic vogài, past participle vogàto, auxiliary avére)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[2][3] Nocentini, Devoto–Oli, Treccani and Prati take it as inherited from Latin vocāre (“to call”), in the sailors' sense “to call out the stroke to the rowers”.^[4][5][6][7] The idea goes back to De Gregorio and was strengthened by Spitzer (1946).^[2] DEI sees in it a calque of Ancient Greek κελεύω (keleúō, “to call, command”), said of the officer who gave the rowers the beat, and thinks the word spread from Marseille.^[8] Nocentini notes that southern Neapolitan vocà and Sicilian vucari keep the original /k/, while the forms with /g/ reflect the lead of the sea powers of Catalonia, Genoa and Venice;^[4][9] Devoto takes the /g/ as northern, probably Venetian, softening.^[4][9] The same word is French voguer, Occitan vogar, Catalan vogar, Spanish bogar and Portuguese vogar.^[4]

Meyer-Lübke and Zaccaria instead derived it from Germanic, Middle High German wogen (“to sway, surge”) or a Old High German *wogōn;^[10][11] Wiktionary connects it with Proto-Germanic *wagōną.^[1] DELI reports that the Kahanes (1982) rejected both explanations: the Germanic one rests on an 11th-century Medieval Latin vogatium read as a word for a navigation right, which is really vogatio (“lordship”), and the Latin verb was never a popular verb in Italy and would have had to turn from transitive to intransitive.^[2] They proposed instead a Greek verb meaning “to rock, cradle”, traced in the dialects of Naples, Calabria and Sicily;^[2][3][12] GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti follow them.^[2][3][12] Nocentini answers that the supposed Greek verb is only inferred from Ancient Greek βαυκαλάω (baukaláō, “to lull to sleep”), and that “to rock a cradle” comes from “to row”, not the reverse, as the Neapolitan diminutive for “to rock” shows.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Medieval Latin vogare is recorded at Genoa in 1214.^[2] The first Italian records are from the end of the 13th century: the Novellino, where a peasant crossing a river with a sheep begins to row, and a Pisan serventese.^[2][13] The sense is “to row”, to push the oars hard so that the boat moves on.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Genoese Latin documents have vogator “rower” in 1248 and voga “oar” in 1267.^[7][8] Dante takes rowing as an example of art using a natural movement (“vogare con remo”), and Boccaccio's sailors reach Aegina “non vogando, ma volando”.^[13][14] vogatore is in the Storia di Barlaam e Giosafatte of 1323.^[2]

Later the verb was used of birds and other animals moving through air or water,^[8][3] and figuratively for working hard.^[8][15] The noun voga is formed from the verb, but in the senses “credit, reputation” and “fashion” it follows French vogue: in voga “in fashion” is recorded from the 17th century.^[2]

Timeline

• 1214 – Medieval Latin vogare at Genoa.^[2]
• 1248 – vogator in a Genoese Latin document.^[7]
• Late 13th century – vogare in the Novellino and a Pisan serventese.^[2]
• 1323 – vogatore is recorded.^[2]
• 1598 – Florio records voga “rowing”.^[2]
• 1724 – Salvini uses voga for “fashion”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (nautical, intransitive) To row, to work the oars to move a boat: Abbiamo vogato fino all'isola senza fermarci.; the command voga! tells a crew to start rowing.^[3][5][16]
2. (literary, figurative) Of animals, to move in the water with the legs; of large birds, to fly with broad, slow beats of the wings.^[3][16][6]
3. (transitive, uncommon) To move a boat by rowing; to move an oar in rowing.^[3][5]

Word family

• voga
• vogata
• vogatore
• vogante
• passavogare

Related words

• vocare
• French voguer
• Spanish bogar

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
7. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1060
8. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4079
9. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Zaccaria, Enrico (1901), L'elemento germanico nella lingua italiana: lessico con appendice e prospetto cronologico, Bologna: Treves
12. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 21, 972
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli