Where does “piano” come from?
piano (French) comes from Italian piano, from Italian -ano, from Latin -ant, from Proto-Italic -āō, from Proto-Indo-European -eh₂yéti, from Proto-Indo-European -yéti, from Proto-Indo-European yé-, from Chichewa iye — he, she.
piano (French): piano
Ancestry of “piano”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | Italian | piano | plane; flat, level; plain |
| 2 | Italian | -ano | Used with a stem to form the third-person plural... |
| 3 | Latin | -ant | third-person plural present active indicative of... |
| 4 | Proto-Italic | -āō | Forms primarily denominative verbs |
| 5 | Proto-Indo-European | -eh₂yéti | Creates iterative/ frequentative/ intensive... |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | -yéti | Creates intransitive, often deponent,... |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | yé- | — |
| 8 | Chichewa | iye | he, she |
Words derived from “piano”