Italian words from French
56 Italian words with French in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
abbandonare
It is borrowed from Old French abandoner (about 1080), formed on the phrase “a bandon” “in someone's power, at their mercy”, from bandon (“power, authority”). DELI and Sabatini–Coletti start from…
agire
It is borrowed from Middle French agir (1450), from Latin agō (“to drive; to do”). Devoto–Oli names Middle French as the route and Devoto the French of the 16th century, the date DEI gives for the…
appuntamento
It is borrowed from French appointement, a legal term recorded in French from 1388. In French it meant an interim ruling by which a judge ordered the parties to bring new witnesses or written…
auto
It is borrowed from French auto, a clipping of automobile of a kind typical of spoken French from the 19th century onwards. DEI compares other familiar French clippings such as métro and stylo…
azione
1. The action is a learned word, borrowed from Latin actio (“a doing; legal action”), from the supine of agō (“to do, drive”). The LEI notes that the Latin word was taken over as a legal term in…
bastardo
It is borrowed from Old French bastard, a word whose further origin is disputed. Medieval Latin bastardus is found in Italy a little before the Italian word, in Salimbene (1281–1288) and in a…
bicchiere
The origin is uncertain. Nocentini takes it as a loan, borrowed from Old French bichier, from Vulgar Latin *bicārium (“jug, tankard”); the Latin word is confirmed by a 9th-century gloss Medieval…
biglietto
It is borrowed from French billet, recorded in French from 1457. The French noun is the masculine counterpart of Old French billette, itself a form of bullette (“certificate”), a diminutive of the…
bisogno
It is borrowed from Old French besoing (“need”), from Frankish *bisunni (“care, concern”), according to Nocentini and GRADIT. DELI and the LEI start instead from Medieval Latin bisonium (“need…
blu
It is borrowed from French bleu (“blue”), earlier Old French blou and bleve (with blef from the 12th century), which also meant “pale, wan”. The French word comes from Frankish *blāo, rendered as…
bordo
It is borrowed from Old French bord (1112), from Frankish *bord (“side of a ship; edge”), which Nocentini compares with Dutch boord. DELI notes that French “bord” has all the senses of the Italian…
borsa
1. The bag is inherited from Late Latin bursa (late 4th century), written ⟨byrsa⟩ in learned spelling, from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa, “hide, leather; wineskin”), an obscure technical word. Already…
bottiglia
It is borrowed from French bouteille, from Late Latin butticula (“small cask”), a diminutive of buttis (“cask”), the source of botte. Nocentini reconstructs Vulgar Latin *bŭttīcŭla with a long /iː/…
bugia
1. The lie is borrowed from Old Occitan bauzia (“deceit, treachery”), from Frankish *bausī (“wickedness”). The Germanic word is the source of Old High German bōsi (“bad”) and German böse (“evil”)…
buttare
Most sources take the word as borrowed from Old French boter, a form of buter (modern French bouter), or as a loan from Old Occitan botar, of Germanic origin. The Germanic source is usually given as…
cinema
It is a clipping of cinematografo, and is borrowed from French cinéma (1900), the clipped form of cinématographe. The variant cinemà, stressed in the French way, was also used. The French word was…
controllare
It is borrowed from French contrôler, a verb formed from contrôle (“check, verification”). GRADIT also analyses it as an Italian derivative of controllo, formed on the French model. The French noun…
controllo
It is borrowed from French contrôle (“check, verification”), recorded in French in 1611. The French word is a shortened form of Middle French contrerole (14th century), literally “counter-roll”, a…
cugino
It is borrowed from Old French cosin (modern French cousin), recorded in French from 1080, which goes back through changes not fully explained to Latin cōnsobrīnus (“son of one's mother's sister…
dipartimento
In its modern senses it is borrowed from French département, from départir (“to divide into parts”), from partir (“to divide”) with the prefix dé-. The French verb continues Late Latin dēpartīre…
droga
Its origin is uncertain. The usual explanation is a word for “dry”: For Nocentini it is borrowed from Middle French drogue, from Middle Low German drōge (“dry”) in a phrase meaning “dry barrels”, so…
fianco
It is borrowed from Old French flanc (“flank, side”), which is from Frankish *hlanka (“hip, bend”). Rohlfs thought the word reached Tuscan through northern Italy. The Frankish word is related to Old…
formaggio
It is borrowed from Old French formage, the Old French form of modern French fromage. The French word comes from Medieval Latin formaticum, short for a phrase meaning “cheese put in a mould”, from…
francese
It is borrowed from Old French franceis, recorded in 1080 and formed from France, the land the Franks occupied. The name first meant a small region north of Paris, then the domain of the first…
funzionare
It is borrowed from French fonctionner, a verb formed in French from fonction (“function”). The French verb is recorded from 1637. In Italian the borrowing was matched to the native noun funzione…
furgone
It is borrowed from French fourgon, recorded in French from the early 17th century (1640 in GRADIT); DELI thinks the word came into Italian first as a military term, in the Napoleonic period, and…
genio
1. The spirit and the talent are a learned word, borrowed from Latin genius (“guardian deity; inclination”). In Latin the word named the personal deity who accompanies each person from birth, and so…
hotel
It is borrowed from French hôtel, from Old French ostel (“lodging, house”), recorded about 1050. The Old French word continues Late Latin hospitale (“lodging for guests”), the neuter of Latin…
inglese
It is borrowed from Old French engleis (“English”), a 12th-century French word for what belongs to the Angles. The French word is formed on the people's name, Old English Engle (“the Angles”), Latin…
locale
1. The adjective is a learned word, borrowed from Late Latin locālis (“of place”), from Latin locus (“place”). DELI notes that the Latin word belonged to the scholastic tradition, where it rendered…
mangiare
It is borrowed from Old French mangier (recorded in 1080), the regular outcome in French of Latin mandūcō (“to chew; to eat”), through an intermediate Vulgar Latin *mandicāre. The Latin verb was…
messaggio
It is borrowed from Old French message, recorded in French from the end of the 11th century and formed from mes (“messenger”), from Latin missus (“one sent, envoy”), the past participle of mittō…
metro
1. The metre of verse is a learned word, borrowed from Latin metrum, from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron, “measure”), of Indo-European origin. Nocentini derives the Greek word from the root…
papà
DELI, GRADIT, Devoto–Oli and the older dictionaries give it as borrowed from French papa, a nursery word recorded in French from 1256. Nocentini rejects this widespread view: following the arguments…
parco
1. The park is probably borrowed from Old French parc, recorded in French in 1175. The French word comes from Medieval Latin parricus (“enclosure”), first attested in the 8th-century Lex Ripuaria…
passaggio
It is borrowed from Old French passage, recorded in French from 1080, from passer (“to pass”). Wiktionary allows a formation from Italian passare + -aggio as well. Medieval Latin passagium is found…
piano
1. The word meaning “flat; slowly; floor” is inherited from Latin plānus (“flat, level; easy, clear”), with the noun plānum (“level ground, plain”), its neuter used as a noun. The adjective is found…
picchiare
1. The verb meaning “to beat” is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pic(c)ulāre (“to tap repeatedly”), according to Nocentini, Devoto–Oli and Devoto: a diminutive or iterative of *pīccāre (“to strike with…
pistola
It is borrowed from French pistole (“small arquebus”), recorded in 1544, from German Pistole, which was taken from Czech píšťala (“pipe, whistle”). The German word entered from Czech during the…
prigione
It is borrowed from Old French prison, recorded in French from 1080, from Latin prehēnsiō (“a seizing, arrest”), from prehendō (“to seize, grasp”). Nocentini derives the Latin noun from the…
progetto
It is borrowed from French projet, first recorded about 1460 in the form Middle French pourget and in its present spelling in 1549, a noun from the verb projeter (“to plan”), first recorded about…
puttana
It is borrowed from Old French putain (about 1119), the old oblique case of pute (“whore”), perhaps by way of Old Occitan putana. Nocentini explains the Old French form as the relic of a feminine…
radio
1. The bone of the forearm is a learned word, borrowed from Latin radius (“rod, staff; ray; spoke”), named for its straight shape. Nocentini takes it from Late Latin, where the word had come to name…
razza
1. The breed is probably borrowed from Old French haraz (“horse stud, stud farm”), an Old French word probably of Norse origin, which developed from “stud” to “breed of horses” and then to “kind…
reale
1. The adjective “real” is borrowed from Medieval Latin reālis (“relating to the thing”), a term of scholastic teaching formed from Latin rēs (“thing”). Wiktionary calls the Latin word Late Latin…
responsabile
It is borrowed from French responsable, adapted to the Italian ending -abile. DELI counts it among a family of modern words all imitated from French, none of which was yet recorded in D'Alberti's…
ristorante
It is borrowed from French restaurant, the present participle of restaurer (“to restore”) used as a noun, given the form of the Italian participle of ristorare. Zingarelli, Gabrielli, the GDLI and…
rotta
1. The break and the defeat are rotto (“broken”), the past participle of rompere (“to break”), in the feminine used as a noun. Other dictionaries trace it directly to Latin rupta, the feminine of…
russo
DELI derives it borrowed from Russian Русь (Rusʹ), the old name of the Rus', which it takes to be of Norse origin, a shortening of Old Norse róþsmenn (“rowers, seafarers”). Nocentini instead takes…
schifo
1. The word for disgust is borrowed from Old French eschif (“shy, averse”), which goes back to Frankish *skiuhjan (“to fear, shun”). Nocentini makes the Old French adjective a derivative of eschiver…
sergente
It is borrowed from Old French sergent (“servant”), recorded in French from 1050 in the sense “servant”, from Latin serviēns (“serving”), the present participle of serviō (“to serve, be a slave”)…
sud
It is borrowed from French sud, which comes from Old English sūþ. DELI dates the French word to 1529 and GRADIT to about 1170, and DEI and Prati to the 12th century. DEI and Prati also allow a…
telefono
It is borrowed from French téléphone, a learned compound of Ancient Greek τῆλε (têle, “far off”) and φωνή (phōnḗ, “voice, sound”), which spread through the English word telephone after Alexander…
treno
It is borrowed from French train, a noun formed from traîner (“to drag, haul”), which comes from Vulgar Latin *tragināre. The Vulgar Latin verb is an extension of *tragāre, from Latin trahō (“to…
troppo
It is borrowed from Old French trop (“much; too much”), recorded in French from about 1050. Nocentini traces the French word to Frankish *þorp (“cluster of people, village”), through Medieval Latin…
turno
It is a borrowing from French, but the sources differ on which French word. DELI and Nocentini derive it from the verb borrowed from French tourner (“to turn”), whose sense passed from “to turn on a…