Etymological dictionaries

Pacentro08 Image
04/24/2010 - 16:43

Picking up on Don's query in the Learning Italian thread, a decent monolingual Italian dictionary, like Devoto & Oli, will give you a brief idea of etymology. I also have a now ancient copy of Giacomo Devoto's Avviamento alla etimologia italiana, published by Oscar Studio Mondadori and I guess there will be an up-to-date version out there. One of my passions is the history of the language, so etymology got to be an addiction too!! Hope this helps Pacentro

Comment

As Pacentro says, any decent monolingual Ital dictionary will give you an idea of etymology.  There are many good etymological dictionaries around and these are not costly as there are paperback editions. I recommend the Mondadori.

  Hi, Just to let you know, that there is a decent source online: http://www.etimo.it/ I often use it for translation work. If you need to conjugate italian verbs, I can recommend: http://coniuga.com/ But there are other good online resources, you may especially look at the dictionaries on the websites: Alice, Corriere della Sera, La Reppublica. The overall IT dictionary for translators is IATE, Interactive Terminology for Europe, but since it is a working instrument for specialist translators, you may not find simple words in it. Have fun :-)