Italian words first recorded in the 9th century

It is a shortened form of the older bevere, which is inherited from Latin bibō (“to drink”). Sabatini–Coletti describes the change as the loss of the syllable after the stress. Pietro Bembo already…

It is inherited from Latin capillus (“hair of the head”). The word continues in all the Romance languages except Romanian and Sardinian, which say Romanian păr and Sardinian pilu: Dalmatian capei…

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin capus, inherited from Latin caput (“head”). In late imperial Latin the neuter ⟨caput⟩ was remade as a masculine ⟨capus⟩, which is found in an inscription. DEI…

It is inherited from Latin collum (“neck”), which in early Latin was also masculine, collus. The word lives on in all the Romance languages except Romanian: French cou, Occitan col, Catalan coll…

It is inherited from Latin dē (“from, down from”) joined to ab (“from, away from”), prepositions that both expressed motion away from a place. Nocentini sees in it the strengthening of short…

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ditus, a spoken form of Latin digitus (“finger, toe”). The LEI posits the shortened form already for Late Latin, and Devoto explains it by the loss of the /g/…

It is inherited from Late Latin gamba (“hock, leg of a horse”), a word of the 4th-century veterinary writers Chiron, Pelagonius and Vegetius, where manuscripts often spell it ⟨camba⟩. It was…

It is inherited from Latin lingua (“tongue; language”), which already had both senses, as Greek did. The same word is French langue, Occitan lenga, Catalan llengua, Spanish lengua, Portuguese…

1. The Mass is inherited from Late Latin missa, recorded in 385 in a letter of Saint Ambrose: “missam facere coepi” (“I began to celebrate Mass”). The same word is French messe and Occitan mesa…

It is inherited from Latin nāsus (“nose”). The same word is French nez, Occitan nas, Catalan nas, Sardinian nasu and Romanian nas, while Spanish naso and Portuguese naso mean a big nose. Latin also…