Italian words from Latin
1034 Italian words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 3).
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…
catturare
It is from Italian cattura (“capture, arrest”) + -are. cattura is borrowed from Latin captūra (“a taking; catch”), from capiō (“to take”). DELI and Nocentini treat it as a learned word; the LEI, by…
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…
cavare
It is inherited from Latin cavō (“to hollow out, to dig”), from cavus (“hollow”). The Latin verb lives on in Romance except Romanian and Sardinian: Romansh chavar, Old French chever, Old Occitan…
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…
cella
It is borrowed from Latin cella (“small room; storeroom”), a learned word according to DELI, Nocentini and Battisti–Alessio. The LEI, however, lists the Old Italian and dialect forms with the…
cena
It is inherited from Latin cēna (“the main meal of the day”). In classical Rome it was the main meal, taken after work in the afternoon; in late antiquity it became the evening meal, as Festus…
cento
It is inherited from Latin centum (“hundred”), an indeclinable numeral. The Latin word survives across the Romance languages except Romanian, which took Romanian sută from Slavic: Dalmatian ciant…
centrale
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin centrālis (“central”), a word of Pliny, from centrum (“centre”) and the adjective suffix -ālis. Latin “centrum” was taken from Ancient Greek κέντρον…
centro
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin centrum (“point of the compasses; centre”), from Ancient Greek κέντρον (kéntron, “goad, sting; point of the compasses; centre of a circle”). The Greek noun…
cercare
It is inherited from Late Latin circāre (“to go around”), from Latin circā (“around”). Nocentini derives it from circum (“round about”), the old accusative of circus (“circle”). The verb is…
cerchio
It is inherited from Latin circulus (“circle, ring”), through a spoken form Vulgar Latin *circlus that lost its inner vowel. The learned doublet of the same Latin word is circolo. The noun continues…
certo
It is inherited from Latin certus (“fixed, settled; sure”). The Latin adjective is in origin the past participle of Latin cernō (“to sift, distinguish, decide”), so that its first meaning was…
cervello
It is inherited from Latin cerebellum, a diminutive of cerebrum (“brain”). The diminutive was a cooking term, and in popular Latin, as in Petronius, it took the place of the base word. The feminine…
che
1. The pronoun “who, which, what” is inherited from Latin quid (“what”), the neuter of quis (“who”), first written “que” in the Placito di Capua of 960. Nocentini derives only the interrogative from…
chi
It is inherited from Latin quī (“who, which”), the nominative singular of the Latin relative pronoun, according to DELI, GRADIT and Devoto–Oli. Nocentini and Treccani derive it from both the…
chiamare
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…
chiamata
It is formed from the verb chiamare with the suffix -ata, or is the feminine past participle used as a noun. The verb, recorded in 1219, is inherited from Latin clāmō (“to shout, call out”), from…
chiaramente
It is formed from Italian chiaro + -mente, from the feminine form of the adjective. Wiktionary traces the type to the Latin ablative phrase with mēns (“mind”), here clārā mente (“with a clear…
chiaro
It is inherited from Latin clārus (“loud; bright, clear; famous”). The word is pan-Romance: French clair, Occitan clar, Catalan clar, Sardinian giaru and Romanian chiar (“just, exactly”), which…
chiave
It is inherited from Latin clāvis (“key; bar, bolt”), from the accusative. The word is pan-Romance: Romanian cheie, Dalmatian kluf, Friulian clâf, Romansh clav, French clef, Occitan clau, Catalan…
chiedere
It is inherited from Latin quaerō (“to seek; to ask”), with dissimilation of the first /r/ to /d/ before the second. DELI compares armadio and rado, where the second /r/ changed instead; the old…
chiesa
It is inherited from Latin ecclēsia (“assembly; church”), borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía, “assembly”), from ἐκκαλέω (ekkaléō, “to call out, summon”). The Greek word was the usual…
chiudere
It is inherited from Late Latin clūdō (“to close, shut”), the Late Latin form of Latin claudō (“to close, shut”), remade on compounds such as inclūdō and exclūdō, where /au/ had regularly become…
chiuso
It is the past participle of chiudere, used as an adjective and a noun. It continues inherited from Latin clūsus (“shut”), a variant of clausus, the past participle of claudō (“to close”). DELI…
ci
Its origin is disputed. According to DELI and Gabrielli it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *hīcce, a spoken form of classical Latin hīc (“here”); Devoto analyses it in the same way, as ⟨hic⟩ with the…
cibo
It is borrowed from Latin cibus (“food”), a learned word. The Latin word survives by the popular route in the south and in the islands: Old Italian cevo in Old Neapolitan and Old Roman, Sicilian…
cieco
It is inherited from Latin caecus (“blind; dark; invisible”). The word survives in Old French cieu, since replaced by aveugle, Occitan cec, Catalan cec, Spanish ciego and Portuguese cego, but not in…
cielo
It is inherited from Latin caelum (“sky, heaven”), whose stressed /ae/ became an open /ɛ/ and then, in an open syllable, the Tuscan diphthong /jɛ/. The same word is found in every Romance language…
cinque
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…
ciò
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ecce hoc (“look, this”), a phrase of Latin ecce (“look!, here is”) and hoc (“this”), the neuter of hic. The same phrase gave Old French ço (modern French ce)…
circa
It is borrowed from Latin circā (“around, about”), a learned word. The Latin adverb and preposition is formed from circus (“circle, ring”), the source of cerchio, with the ending “-ā” on the model…
città
It is inherited from Latin cīvitās (“citizenship; the citizens; city”) (in Italian from its accusative case), a derivative of cīvis (“citizen”) with the suffix -tās. DELI traces the Latin noun for…
civile
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cīvīlis (“of a citizen; public; courteous”), from cīvis (“citizen”) with the suffix -īlis. The LEI notes that Latin already used it both for what belongs to…
classe
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin classis (“division of the Roman people; levy; fleet”). In several modern senses it was influenced by French classe. The popular outcome of the same Latin…
cliente
It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin cliēns (“dependant, client”), the word for a free man under the protection of a patron in ancient Rome. The same Latin word gave French client (from…
codice
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cōdex (“tree trunk; writing tablets; book”). The Latin word first meant a tree trunk, then a wooden tablet for writing, then a set of tablets joined…
coglione
It is inherited from Late Latin cōleō (“testicle”), a noun of the Latin glossaries, with the stem ⟨cōleōn-⟩, formed on classical cōleus (“testicle; scrotum”). Nocentini reconstructs the spoken form…
colazione
It is borrowed from Latin collātiō (“a bringing together”), the noun of collātus, the past participle of cōnferō (“to bring together”), a compound of cum (“with”) and ferō (“to carry”). The Latin…
collega
It is borrowed from Latin collēga (“colleague in office”), a learned word. The same Latin word was borrowed as French collègue (from about 1500), Spanish colega (1545), Portuguese colega (1650) and…
collo
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…
colonnello
It is from Italian colonna + -ello, a diminutive of “colonna” “column”. The military sense comes from “colonna” as a column of soldiers: the “colonnello” was first the body of several companies, and…
colore
It is inherited from Latin color (“colour, complexion”), from the accusative “colōrem”. DELI calls it a learned word, but the LEI treats it as inherited, since the noun lives on in every Romance…
colpa
It is inherited from Latin culpa (“fault, guilt”). Nocentini sets it beside Old French coupe and Old Occitan colpa, and notes that Catalan culpa, Spanish culpa and Portuguese culpa were taken from…
colpo
It is inherited from Late Latin colpus (“blow”), the form found in the Salic Law (6th century), a contraction of Latin colaphus (“punch, slap”), which is borrowed from Ancient Greek κόλαφος…
coltello
It is inherited from Latin cultellus (“small knife”), the diminutive of culter (“knife”). When “culter” came to mean the blade of the plough and the plough itself (the source of coltro), the…
comando
It is a deverbal noun with no suffix, formed from comandare. The verb continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *commandāre, a popular form of Latin commendō (“to entrust, hand over”), formed with con-…
combattere
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *combattuere, a Late Latin compound of cum (“with”) and battuō (“to beat, pound”), recorded from the 6th century in the sense “to beat, strike”. The new verb took…
come
It is inherited from Late Latin quōmo, a Late Latin shortening of Latin quōmodo (“in what way, how”), recorded from the 2nd–3rd century. Wiktionary notes that forms without ⟨d⟩ are securely attested…
cominciare
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cominitiāre, a Vulgar Latin verb made from Latin initiō (“to begin; to initiate”) with the prefix com-. The Latin verb comes from initium (“beginning”). DELI…
comodo
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin commodus (“of the right measure; convenient”); the noun continues the Latin neuter commodum (“advantage”). The Latin adjective is formed from com- (“with”)…
compagno
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…
compito
1. The task is from Italian compitare + -o, a noun formed from the verb in its old sense “to reckon, to compute”, according to DELI, GRADIT, DEI and Sabatini–Coletti. “Compitare” is from Latin…
completo
It is borrowed from Latin complētus (“filled; complete”), the past participle of compleō (“to fill up; to finish”). The inherited participle of the Latin verb is compiuto, beside compiere. The…