ontoso

Italian

FWOTD – 26 August 2015

From Old French honteux (“ashamed; shameful”). By surface analysis, onta (“shame”) +‎ -oso (“-ous, -ful”).

ontoso (feminine ontosa, masculine plural ontosi, feminine plural ontose) (obsolete)

shameful, injurious
- 1300s–1310s, Dante Alighieri, “Canto VII”, in Inferno [Hell]‎^[1], lines 31-33; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate]‎^[2], 2^nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:
  Così tornavan per lo cerchio tetro
  da ogne mano a l’opposito punto,
  gridandosi anche loro ontoso metro;
  Thus they returned along the lurid circle on either hand unto the opposite point, shouting their shameful metre evermore.
indignant, resentful
- 1343, Giovanni Boccaccio, Amorosa visione [Loving Vision]‎^[3], published 1833, Chapter 20, page 83:
  Ontoso tutto lagrimando mise
  La mano ad uno stocco ch’avea seco,
  Col qual dal corpo l’anima divise.
  Resentful, he cryingly grabbed hold of a rapier he had with him, with which he separated the body from the soul.
ashamed
- 1877, Luigi Capuana, Profili di donne‎^[4], page 54:
  Rizzossi e mi si fece innanzi con un’aria di profonda tristezza, ontosa di aver già troppo capito le mie balorde intenzioni e nello stesso tempo proprio decisa a sdebitarsi con me
  She stood up, and faced me with a look of deep sadness, ashamed as she was of having understood my vile intentions more than enough, and yet at the same time firmly determined to repay me