Italian words from Latin
963 Italian words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 2).
avanti
It is inherited from Late Latin abante (“in front, before”), formed from ab (“from”) and ante (“before”). The Late Latin word is recorded from the 2nd century, in the Old Latin Bible, and was used…
avere
It is inherited from Latin habeō (“to have, hold”). The verb is found in every Romance language: French avoir, Occitan aver, Catalan aver, Spanish haber, Portuguese haver, Sardinian àere, Romanian…
avvocato
It is borrowed from Latin advocātus (“one called in to help; legal counsel”), the past participle of advocō (“to call to one's aid; to call into court”), from ad- and vocō (“to call”). The LEI finds…
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…
baciare
It is inherited from Latin bāsiāre (“to kiss”), derived from bāsium (“kiss”). Catullus brought the verb into Latin literature for an amorous kiss, and Martial uses it for a kiss of respect; it…
bacio
1. The kiss is inherited from Latin bāsium (“kiss”). The Latin word first appears, with the verb basiāre, in Catullus, who was from Verona, and that is why it is often thought to be a Celtic loan…
bagno
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *baneum, the popular form of Latin balneum (“bath; bathing place”), which had lost the rare cluster ⟨ln⟩. The form ⟨baneum⟩ is written on a wall at Pompeii and is…
ballare
It is inherited from Late Latin ballō (“to dance; to sway”), recorded in Saint Augustine in 393. Inscriptions with Latin baliator at Pompeii (before 79) and ballatores at Rome (3rd century) suggest…
barca
It is inherited from Late Latin barca (“boat”), first found in an inscription from Lusitania of about 200 AD and then in Isidore of Seville, who describes it as the boat that carried goods from…
base
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin basis (“base, pedestal”), which Latin had taken as a technical term from Ancient Greek βάσις (básis, “step, gait; foot; base”). The Greek noun comes from…
basso
It is inherited from Late Latin bassus, found in Latin glosses of the 8th century with the gloss “crassus, non altus” (thick, not tall). The adjective first meant “fat, stout” (early 6th century)…
bastare
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *bastāre, a verb not recorded in classical Latin; Medieval Latin has “bastare” in Uguccione's dictionary. The same verb is Old Occitan bastar, Catalan bastar…
battaglia
It is inherited from Late Latin battālia (“fighting exercises”), a variant of battuālia, the neuter plural of an adjective battuālis, from battuō (“to beat”). The grammarian Charisius records the…
battere
It is inherited from Latin battere, the popular form recorded from Fronto in the 2nd century AD, which replaced classical battuere, used since Plautus. The word continues in every Romance language…
beccare
It is from Italian becco (“beak”) + -are. The same verb is French becquer, Old French bechier and Occitan becar. “Becco” is inherited from Latin beccus (“beak”), a word of Gaulish origin, as…
bello
It is inherited from Latin bellus (“pretty, charming”), a diminutive of bonus (“good”). DELI and the LEI describe it as a word of familiar and affectionate speech, at first used by women and…
bene
It is inherited from Latin bene (“well”), the adverb that belongs to Latin bonus (“good”). In Latin it was often combined with a verb or adjective, and many of these compounds came into Italian as…
bere
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…
bocca
It is inherited from Latin bucca (“cheek; mouth”). The Latin word first meant “cheek”, as it still does in Romanian bucă, and, from Cato onwards also “mouth” in familiar speech, where it displaced…
bomba
It is a word of imitative origin, built on the sound sequence ⟨bomb⟩ that names a resonant noise, a hum or an explosion. The same sequence is in from Latin bombus (“a buzzing, booming”), borrowed…
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…
braccio
It is inherited from Latin brāc(c)hium (“arm; forearm”), borrowed from Ancient Greek βραχίων (brakhíōn, “arm”). Already the ancients explained the Greek word as “the shorter”, a comparative of…
bravo
Its origin is disputed. It is most often explained as inherited from Latin barbarus (“foreign; wild”), from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, “foreign, non-Greek”). The LEI derives it from a…
breve
It is inherited from Latin brevis (“short”), continued in its accusative form. The LEI and Nocentini count it among the inherited words, while Körting calls it half-learned in all the Romance…
bruciare
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *brusiāre, a verb whose origin is among the most disputed in Romance etymology. Some connect it with Latin ūrō (“to burn”) (past participle ūstum), others with a…
brutto
It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *brūttus, a form of Latin brūtus (“heavy; dull, brutish”) with an expressively doubled consonant, as the LEI and GRADIT hold. DELI calls the derivation…
buio
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *būrius (“dark red, dark-coloured”), derived from Latin burrus (“red”). The Vulgar Latin form is not recorded; the LEI, following Meyer-Lübke and Wartburg, accepts…
buono
It is inherited from Latin bonus (“good”). It continues in the whole Romance area: French bon, Occitan bon, Catalan bo, Spanish bueno, Portuguese bom, Sardinian bónu, Friulian bon and Romanian bun…
cadavere
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cadāver (“corpse”) (genitive “cadāveris”). The Old Italian form “cadavero” was remade after masculine nouns in “-o”. The form closer to the Latin began to…
cadere
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cadēre, a Vulgar Latin form of classical Latin cadĕre (“to fall”) that moved the verb into the conjugation in ⟨-ēre⟩. The LEI finds that change already in Late…
calcio
1. The kick is inherited from Latin calx (“heel”), from the stem “calc-”. The LEI takes “calcio” as a form of the Latin word moved into the “-o” declension, beside calce “heel” in Old Umbrian and…
caldo
It is inherited from Latin caldus (“warm, hot”), the syncopated form of calidus that was already in Varro's usage, from caleō (“to be warm”). The Appendix Probi condemns it (“calida non calda”), but…
calma
It is inherited from Late Latin cauma (“great heat”), from Ancient Greek καῦμα (kaûma, “burning heat, heat of the sun”), a derivative of καίω (kaíō, “to burn”). The Late Latin word is used by…
calmo
It is a shortened past participle of calmare (“to calm”), used as an adjective. The verb is formed from the noun calma (“calm”), which according to DELI and Nocentini comes from Late Latin cauma…
cambiare
It is inherited from Late Latin cambiō (“to exchange, barter”), a Late Latin verb of Gaulish origin. Apuleius uses it, and the glosses explain it as “to give one thing for another”. DELI points to a…
camera
1. The word for a room is inherited from Latin camera (“vault, vaulted ceiling”), from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára, “vault; vaulted room”). DELI calls the origin of the Greek word unclear, and…
camminare
It is inherited from Late Latin camināre (“to walk, travel”), a verb recorded in Venantius Fortunatus in the 6th century, which Wiktionary gives as *cammīnāre. DELI, GRADIT, the TLIO and Devoto…
campione
It is borrowed from Late Latin campiō (“fighter, champion”), recorded in glosses and Lombard documents. The Late Latin word is taken from Frankish *kampijō (“fighter in the field”), itself formed…
campo
It is inherited from Latin campus (“plain, open country; field”). The word is found in all the Romance languages: French champ, Occitan camp, Catalan camp, Spanish campo, Portuguese campo, Sardinian…
cancro
It is borrowed from Latin cancer (“crab; the constellation Cancer; cancer”), a learned word. The medical sense was already Latin: it is a semantic loan from the medicine of the Greeks, which named a…
cane
It is inherited from Latin canis (“dog”), from the accusative ⟨canem⟩. The word is panromance: French chien, Occitan ca, Catalan ca (in Majorca), Old Spanish can, Portuguese cão, Sardinian cane…
cantare
It is inherited from Latin cantō (“to sing”), the frequentative or intensive of canō (“to sing”). In Latin the derived verb took the place of the irregular older verb as early as the 3rd century BC…
canzone
It is inherited from Latin cantiō (“singing, song”) (accusative “cantiōnem”), a noun of action from canō (“to sing”) and -tiō. The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *keh₂n- (“to sing”). In…
capace
It is borrowed from Latin capāx (“able to hold; capable”), a learned word, from capiō (“to take, to hold”) with the suffix -āx. Devoto compares edāx (“greedy”) beside the verb for “to eat”. The…
capello
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…
capire
It is inherited from Latin capiō (“to take; to hold; to grasp”), with a change of conjugation: Latin verbs in ⟨-ĕre⟩ with ⟨-i-⟩ in the present stem tended to pass to ⟨-īre⟩. Devoto–Oli and…
capitano
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *capitānus (“chief, principal”), formed from Latin caput (“head”) (genitive ⟨capitis⟩); Late Latin had the similar capitāneus (“outstanding in size”). The LEI…
capitare
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *capitāre (“to come to a head, to end up”), a verb not recorded in classical Latin, formed on Latin caput (“head”) (genitive “capitis”). The sense would have moved…
capo
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…
carino
It is from Italian caro + -ino, the affectionate diminutive of the adjective meaning “dear”. The base word is inherited from Latin cārus (“dear; costly”), found in every Romance language except…
carne
It is inherited from Latin carō (“flesh, meat”), continued in the form of its accusative “carnem”. The word survives in every Romance language: French chair, Occitan carn, Catalan carn, Spanish…
caro
It is inherited from Latin cārus (“dear, beloved; precious; costly”). The Latin adjective already had both its senses, and Plautus played on the double meaning. The word continues in all the Romance…
carta
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…
casa
It is inherited from Latin casa (“hut, cottage”). In classical Latin the word for a house was domus, which survives in Italian duomo; the Latin word named the countryman's hut, opposed to the villa…
caso
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cāsus (“fall; event, chance; grammatical case”), from cadō (“to fall”). The grammatical sense was already in Latin, as a calque of Ancient Greek πτῶσις…
cattivo
It is inherited from Latin captīvus (“captive, prisoner”), from captus (“taken”), the past participle of capiō (“to take”). The sense “wicked” comes from the phrase Ecclesiastical Latin captīvus…
causa
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin causa (“cause, reason; lawsuit”), an older caussa. The same Latin noun, in popular speech, became cosa “thing”, as it did in nearly all the Romance…
cavallo
It is inherited from Latin caballus (“workhorse, gelding”). Classical Latin called the horse equus, an old Indo-European name; “caballus” appears from the 2nd century BC, first in Lucilius, for the…
cavolo
It is inherited from Late Latin caulus (“stalk; cabbage”), the Late Latin form of Latin caulis (“stem, stalk; cabbage”). The word probably spread from southern Italy: the southern dialects kept the…
ce
It is the form ci takes before the unstressed pronouns ⟨lo⟩, ⟨la⟩, ⟨li⟩, ⟨le⟩ and the particle ⟨ne⟩, both as the pronoun “us, to us” and as the adverb “there”. Tommaseo compared it with me and te in…