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vuoto

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Pronunciation

Forms

vuoto (feminine vuota, masculine plural vuoti, feminine plural vuote)[1] The older and popular form is voto, written vôto by some to tell it from voto “vow”.[2][3][4] Old forms include voito and boito in Guittone d'Arezzo and vodo in Dante.[5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *vocitus (“emptied”), a variant of *vacitus, the past participle of a verb *vacēre (“to be empty”) that stood beside classical Latin vacō (“to be empty, free”).[7][8][9][10] DEI finds the unrecorded verb presupposed by Lucretius's vacēfīō (“to become empty”).[5] DELI credits the etymology to Vilhelm Thomsen, who argued for it in 1875 after earlier attempts had run into difficulties, and Meyer-Lübke rejected Diez's derivation from vacuus (“empty”).[7][10]

The vowel ⟨o⟩ is supported by the old form Old Italian voito, by Sardinian bóidu and by Latin vocīvus beside vacīvus (“empty”).[8][7][5] Guittone d'Arezzo writes “di fora pieno, e voito dentro” (“full outside, and empty inside”).[7] Nocentini explains the loss of the ⟨c⟩ by an early voicing of /k/ to /ɡ/, which was then lost before /i/ as in mai from Latin magis.[8] DEI and Devoto see in the form the northern sound changes: with the intervocalic consonant dropped, the diphthong of ⟨voito⟩ was reduced.[5][11]

The same word is French vide, Occitan vueid, Catalan buit, Friulian vueid and Romansh vöd.[8][10][5] The learned vacuo continues the Latin adjective.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, as vôto, is in Brunetto Latini before 1294, for something with nothing inside it;[7][9][8] Nocentini dates the word to 1268.[7][9][8] The diphthong form vuoto is first found around 1350 in the Italian translation of Pietro de' Crescenzi.[7]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense “lacking, devoid of” is in Petrarch in 1374.[7] As a noun the word was used in the 14th century by Giovanni Villani for an empty space, and the Ottimo commentary on Dante already mentions philosophers who held that a void exists.[5][2] Anton Maria Salvini called the question of the void much debated among ancient and modern physicists, and Tommaseo remarks that the horror of the void, banished from physics, survives elsewhere.[2] Modern senses are later: an empty container (1840), and the physical sense of a rarefied space in a vessel or valve (1961).[7]

The verb vuotare appears as votare in Boccaccio (1348–1353).[7] Compounds include vuotaborse (1583), the old vuotacessi (15th century), and the modern kitchen tools vuotamele and vuotazucchine.[8] In music corda vuota (1791) is an open string, and German borrowed Vuoto as a musical term.[12]

Timeline

  • 1268 – Nocentini's date for the first record.[8]
  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses vôto.[7]
  • 1348–1353 – Boccaccio uses the verb votare.[7]
  • c. 1350 – The form vuoto appears in the Italian Crescenzi.[7]
  • 1374 – Petrarch uses it in the sense “devoid of”.[7]
  • 1791 – Corda vuota “open string” is recorded.[12]
  • 1840 – The noun is recorded for an empty container.[7]
  • 1875 – Vilhelm Thomsen publishes his etymology.[7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. empty, with nothing inside: Il frigorifero è vuoto.[9][3][4]
  2. Without people, or with few people: In agosto la città è vuota.[9][3][13]
  3. Of a seat, free; of a house, unoccupied or unfurnished.[9][3]
  4. (figurative, with di) devoid of: frasi vuote di senso.[9][4][13]
  5. (figurative) Without meaning, purpose or content; of a person, shallow: Ha passato una giornata vuota.[9][4][14]
  6. (heraldry) Of a figure, drawn only in outline.[9][14]

Noun

  1. Empty space, the void: guardare nel vuoto.[9][4]
  2. (physics) A vacuum, a space without matter or with very rarefied gas.[4][7]
  3. An empty container, such as a returnable bottle.[7][13]
  4. (figurative) A gap, a lack, a sense of emptiness: La sua partenza ha lasciato un vuoto.[4][7]

Word family

  • vuotare
  • svuotare
  • sottovuoto
  • semivuoto
  • vuotaggine
  • vuotezza
  • vuotaborse
  • vacuo
  • vacare
  • vano
  • French vide

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include a mani vuote “empty-handed”, a stomaco vuoto “on an empty stomach”, vuoto di memoria “memory lapse”, andare a vuoto “to come to nothing” and sotto vuoto “vacuum-packed”.[9][3][4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  3. ^ a b c d e 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 Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  5. ^ a b c d e f Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 4094
  6. ^ Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 1064
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  10. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  11. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 476
  12. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli