autorità

See also: autorita

Italian

Alternative forms

• autoritade (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin auctōritātem, derived from auctor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /aw.to.riˈta/^*
• Rhymes: -a
• Hyphenation: au‧to‧ri‧tà

Noun

autorità f (invariable)

1. (uncountable) authority (power to enforce rules or give orders)
   • 1873 December [1872], Friedrich Engels, “Dell'autorità”, in Almanacco repubblicano per l'anno 1874; translated into English as “On Authority”, in Marx/Engels Collected Works, volume 23, 1988, page 424:

     L’autorità e l’autonomia sono cose relative, di cui le sfere variano nelle differenti fasi dello sviluppo sociale. Se gli autonomisti si limitassero a dire che l’organizzazione sociale dell’avvenire restringerà l’autorità ai soli limiti ai quali le condizioni della produzione la rendono inevitabile, si potrebbe intendersi; invece essi sono ciechi per tutti i fatti che rendono necessaria la cosa, e si avventano contro la parola.

     Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the word.

2. (in the plural) authorities (bodies that have power and control in a particular sphere)
3. extended meanings:
4. (by extension) prestige, influence
   • 1300s–1310s, Dante Alighieri, “Canto IV”, in Inferno [Hell], lines 112–114; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate], 2^nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:

     Genti v'eran con occhi tardi e gravi,
     di grande autorità ne' lor sembianti:
     parlavan rado, con voci soavi.

     People were there with solemn eyes and slow, of great authority in their countenance; they spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.

5. (by extension) an authoritative testimony or claim
6. (by extension) an influential example
7. (rare) a quote from a literary work
8. authority (person accepted as a source of reliable information on a subject)

Derived terms

• autoritario

Related terms

• autorevole
• autoritarismo
• autorizzare

Further reading

• autorità in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

• attuario

Ladin

Noun

autorità f (plural autoriteies)

1. authority

Piedmontese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /awturiˈta/

Noun

autorità f

1. authority