The linguist, specialist in neology and terminology, Giovanni Adamo died suddenly on 11 October 2021. He was director of research at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) from the Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle Idee (ILIESI), and head of the Osservatorio Neologico della Lingua Italiana (ONLI).

He was one of the founding members of REALITER (Pan-Latin Network of Terminology and Neology) and the driving force behind the International Congress on the Neology of Romance Languages, which has been held every three years since 2008. He was an undisputed promoter of terminology and neology in Italy and Europe and was president of the Italian Association of Terminology (Asi.Term) and of the European Association of Terminology (AET/EAFT).

He authored, together with Valeria Della Valle, several reference books on neology: Innovazioni lessicale e terminologie specialistiche (2003), 2006 nuove parole - Un dizionario di neologismi dai giornali (2005), Che fine fanno i neologismi? A cento anni dalla pubblicazione del «Dizionario moderno» di Alfredo Panzini (2006), Che cos’è un neologismo (2017), Le parole del lessico italiano (2018).

For the members of the IULA, especially for those of the IULATERM group and the Observatory of Neology, this is a deeply felt loss. Giovanni Adamo was the Italian point of reference, he visited us whenever he could and for some of us, he was a friend. He will be missed.