Italian words first recorded in the 13th century

It is inherited from Latin prīmus (“first”), the superlative of the old adverb prī (“before”). The Latin word comes from an older ⟨*prīsmos⟩, attested in Paelignian ⟨prismu⟩. Nocentini compares the…

It is from Latin secundus (“following; second; favourable”), an old participle of sequor (“to follow”), so properly “the one that follows, comes after”. The preposition continues secundum (“behind…

It is a noun formed from Italian accordare + -o, from the verb meaning “to bring into agreement”. The verb is Vulgar Latin *accordāre, formed from Latin cor (“heart”) (genitive ⟨cordis⟩) with the…

It is inherited from Latin adiungere (“to join to, add”), from iungō (“to join, yoke”) with the prefix ad-. The verb survives across the Romance languages: Old French ajoindre, Occitan ajonher…

It is inherited from Latin centēnārius (“containing a hundred”), used as a noun in the neuter. In Late Latin the neuter noun meant a weight of a hundred pounds. The adjective comes from centēnus (“a…

It is inherited from Latin cōnfirmāre (“to strengthen; to ratify”), formed with con- on firmō (“to make firm”), from firmus (“firm, stable”). The LEI counts the form with e among the popular…

It is inherited from Old Italian donno (“lord, master”), shortened in front of a proper name. The Old Italian word is inherited from Late Latin domnus, the syncopated form of Latin dominus (“master…

It is inherited from Latin littera (“letter of the alphabet”), whose plural litterae meant “an epistle”, “literature” and “culture”. Under the influence of Ancient Greek γράμμα (grámma) and its…

It is inherited from Latin sēcūrus (“free from care, untroubled”), through a Vulgar Latin form with the usual change of the unstressed ⟨e⟩ before the stress to ⟨i⟩. The Latin adjective is formed…

The origin is uncertain. The starting point of the LEI and Meyer-Lübke is inherited from Vulgar Latin *anque, the form that best explains the outcomes in every Romance language; the LEI takes it…

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cīnque, inherited from Latin quīnque (“five”), with the first /kʷ/ dissimilated to /k/ before the second. The dissimilated form is already written in late Latin…

It is inherited from Late Latin compāniō (“companion”). Italian continues the nominative (Nocentini says the vocative), while the accusative gave compagnone. The Latin word is first found in the…

It is inherited from Latin dīcō (“to say”), from the infinitive ⟨dīcere⟩ shortened to two syllables; the full form survives in Old Italian dicere. The LEI supposes that a short infinitive circulated…

It is inherited from Latin dēbeō (“to owe; to be under an obligation”), contracted from an older “*dē-habeō”, a compound of dē- (“away from”) and habeō (“to have, hold”), the source of avere. The…

It is inherited from Latin ille (“that”), from the accusative ⟨illum⟩ shortened in unstressed position before a noun. The article is a Romance innovation drawn from the Latin demonstrative; only…

It is inherited from Latin levō (“to lighten; to raise”), a verb formed from levis (“light”). The verb is found in every Romance language: French lever, Occitan levar, Catalan llevar, Spanish llevar…

It is borrowed from Latin liber (“inner bark of a tree; book”), a learned or semi-learned word: Körting points out that the ⟨i⟩ kept in every Romance language shows a partly bookish transmission…

It is inherited from Latin illōrum (“of those”), the genitive plural of Latin ille (“that”). DELI calls the use of the genitive instead of the dative exceptional, and explains it, following Bourciez…

It is inherited from Latin mercātus (“trade; market, fair”), an action noun from mercor (“to trade, to buy”), itself from merx (“goods, merchandise”). The same word is French marché, Occitan mercat…

It is inherited from Latin novem (“nine”). The same word is French neuf, Occitan nou, Catalan nou, Spanish nueve, Portuguese nove, Sardinian noe, Romansh nuf, Friulian nuf and Romanian nouă…

It is inherited from Latin novus (“new”). The word is pan-Romance: French neuf, Occitan nuou, Catalan nou, Spanish nuevo, Portuguese novo, Friulian ñuf, Sardinian nou and Romanian nou. The Latin…

It is inherited from Latin octō (“eight”). The numeral is panromance: French huit, Occitan uech, Catalan vuit, Spanish ocho, Portuguese oito, Friulian vot, Sardinian otto and Romanian opt. The Latin…

It is inherited from Latin pācō (“to pacify, quieten”), from pāx (“peace”). In late and spoken Latin the verb came to mean quieting a creditor with money, and so “to pay”: Medieval Latin pagāre is…

It is inherited from Latin poena (“fine; punishment; suffering”), which Latin had taken from Ancient Greek ποινά (poiná, “compensation, price of blood; penalty”), the Doric form of ποινή (poinḗ)…

It is inherited from Latin positus (“placed, put”), the past participle of pōnō (“to place, put”), through the shortened form postus with the loss of the vowel after the stress. The adjective…

It is inherited from Latin praestāre (“to provide, guarantee; to lend”). DELI lists it among the learned words of the family, together with prestazione and prestito, but Nocentini, DEI and the DÉRom…

It is inherited from Latin prōmittō (“to send forward; to promise”), from prō- (“forward”) and mittō (“to send”), the source of mettere. DEI calls it a learned adaptation of the Latin verb. The same…

1. It is inherited from Latin quantus (“how great, how much”), with the adverb from its neuter quantum. The Latin word is formed from quam (“how, as”), which belongs with quis (“who”) (see chi), and…

It is inherited from Latin suprā (“above, over”). The Latin word, older suprād, was the ablative feminine of superus (“upper”) with the inner vowel lost, and that adjective was formed from super…

It is inherited from Latin spatha (“weaver's batten; broad sword”), a word Latin took from Ancient Greek σπάθη (spáthē, “spatula, broad blade”). The Latin word meant both the weaver's flat wooden…

It is inherited from Latin stō (“to stand, stand firm; to be situated”). The Latin present participle stāns lives on in stante. The verb is found in every Romance language: Old French ester (the…

It is borrowed from English sterling, the name of an English silver coin. The feminine form comes from the phrase lira sterlina, a translation of English pound sterling, with lira for the pound. The…

It is inherited from Late Latin strāta (“paved road”), short for Latin via strāta (“paved way”), in which strātus (“spread, paved”) is the past participle of sternō (“to spread out, pave”). The /d/…

It is inherited from Latin intrā (“within, inside”), with the loss of the first syllable; Wiktionary adds the influence of inter (“between”). The southern dialects keep the fuller form, as Sicilian…

It is inherited from Latin trēs, from Proto-Italic *trēs, from Proto-Indo-European *tréyes. The numeral is pan-Romance: French trois, Occitan tres, Catalan tres, Spanish tres, Portuguese três…

It is inherited from Late Latin veclus, the spoken form of Latin vetulus (“elderly, rather old”), a diminutive of vetus (“old”). The Appendix Probi of the 5th century warns against the popular form…

It is inherited from Late Latin vinti, a spoken form of Latin vīgintī (“twenty”). DELI and Nocentini cite the classical form vīgintī. The Late Latin form had a short ⟨i⟩, which gave Italian closed…

It is from Italian cittade + -ino, the first part being the old form of città. The LEI sets beside the widespread Vulgar Latin *cīvitānus a form *cīvitīnus for Friuli and Italy, based on Latin…

It is inherited from Latin ad illam hōram (“at that hour”), a phrase of ad (“to, at”), ille (“that”) and hōra (“hour”). Nocentini starts instead from the Late Latin ablative phrase illā hōrā (“in…

It is a Germanic word, from a West Germanic Proto-Germanic *bosk or *busk (“wood, thicket”), the word of German Busch and English bush. The two forms are reconstructed because the dialects show…

It is inherited from Latin charta (“sheet of papyrus; writing, letter”), from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “leaf of papyrus”), a Greek word of uncertain origin. Latin made it feminine. The word is…

It is inherited from Latin clāmō (“to shout, proclaim; to call by name”). Its learned doublet is clamare. The word is panromance: Romanian chema, Dalmatian klamuar, Friulian clamâ, Old French…

It is formed from Italian compagno + -ia, from compagno (“companion”). Wiktionary takes it as the older Old Italian compagna, from Vulgar Latin *compānia, reshaped with the suffix ⟨-ia⟩. Meyer-Lübke…

It is inherited from Latin cum (“with”), Old Latin ⟨com⟩, from Proto-Italic *kom, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“next to, with”). In Latin compounds it appears as the prefixes ⟨con-⟩ and ⟨co-⟩. The…

It is inherited from Late Latin cognōscentia (“knowledge, wisdom”), formed on cognōscēns, the present participle of cognōscō (“to get to know”). GDLI calls it a learned word formed like essenza and…

It is borrowed from Latin dēbitum (“what is owed, debt”), the noun use of the neuter of dēbitus (“owed”), the past participle of dēbeō (“to owe”); the adjective is the participle itself. DELI and…

It is inherited from Latin dēfendō (“to ward off; to protect”). The Latin verb is a compound of dē- (“away”) and *fendō (“to strike”), which is found only in compounds, as in offendō. Its first…

It is inherited from Late Latin fāre, the shortened Late Latin infinitive of Latin facere (“to make, do”). DELI, Nocentini and GRADIT give the classical “facere” as the source. The reduced…

It is inherited from Latin factum (“deed, act”), the noun use of factus (“made, done”), the past participle of faciō (“to make, do”), which gave fare. Nocentini notes that the participle took both…

It is formed from ferire “to wound” with the suffix of feminine past participles (from Italian ferire + -ita). The form “feruta” has the other participle ending, “-uta”. The verb continues Latin…

It is inherited from Latin forīs (“outside”). The variants ⟨fora⟩ and ⟨fuora⟩ continue forās (“out, to the outside”), used for motion, while forīs expressed rest; DEI notes that the two were used…

It is inherited from Latin fūrtum (“theft; stolen goods”), derived from fūr (“thief”). DELI and GRADIT explain the Latin noun as the past participle of an unrecorded verb ⟨*fūrere⟩ “to steal”, and…

It is inherited from Latin legō (“to gather, collect; to read”). The GDLI calls it a learned word. The Latin verb lives on in French lire, Occitan legir, Spanish leer and Portuguese ler. The first…

It is inherited from Latin maior (“greater, older”), the comparative of magnus (“great”). Sabatini–Coletti notes that the ⟨gg⟩, /ddʒ/, is the usual Tuscan outcome of Latin /j/ between vowels. The…

It is inherited from Latin mandō (“to entrust; to commission, order”). The Latin verb is usually analysed as a contraction of *man(um) dare, equivalent to the phrase in manum dare (“to put into…

It is inherited from Latin mīlle (“thousand”). The word is found throughout Romance: French mille, Occitan mil, Catalan mil, Spanish mil, Portuguese mil and Sardinian milli, while Romanian mie…

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *morīre, for classical Latin morī (“to die”). Early Latin already had the infinitive ⟨morīrī⟩ in Plautus and Ennius, and the spoken language turned the deponent…

It is inherited from Latin movēre (“to move”), with a change of conjugation, through a Vulgar Latin *movĕre. The verb is found throughout Romance except Romanian and Sardinian: French mouvoir…

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin odium (“hatred”), from the verb ōdī (“I hate”), a perfect with present meaning. DEI notes that it came down mainly through the Medieval Latin of the Church…

It is inherited from Old Italian onne, inherited from Latin omnis (“all, every”). DELI starts from a form omnim for the usual accusative omnem, if a reading in a passage of the Itala is correct, as…