ángel

Forms

ángel m (plural ángeles, diminutive angelito)^[1] Old Spanish texts also spell it anjel and once algel, and have a plural ángelos.^[2][3] The Academy's historical dictionary records the regional spellings ánxel and ánjel; the word is masculine, and only exceptionally feminine.^[4] Juan del Encina used a dialect form ángelo.^[3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish angel, a learned word borrowed from Late Latin angelus (“messenger; angel”).^[3][5][6][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek ἄγγελος (ángelos, “messenger, envoy”), which the Greek Bible used for the Hebrew word for “messenger”.^[7][8]

Corominas notes that the loss of the final vowel is not regular in Castilian.^[3] It could be a very early Occitan form, brought in by the monks of Cluny or the pilgrims to Santiago with other Gallo-Romance religious words, but he thinks it more likely that the word was shortened before a following name or complement, as in “the angel Saint Gabriel” or “the angel of the Lord”, as apóstol was.^[3] Bénaben also takes the word as a shortened form of ángelo.^[9] Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[1] García de Diego instead derives the Castilian word from Old French angele.^[10]

The full forms survive in ángelos and arcángelos in the first Partida of Alfonso X and in Juan del Encina's dialect form, which matches Portuguese anjo.^[3] The Portuguese word, like Galician anxo, developed by regular sound change.^[11][10] Other cognates are Asturian ánxel, Catalan àngel, Occitan àngel, French ange, Italian angelo and Romanian înger.^[12][1] Corominas's Catalan dictionary dates the Catalan word from the earliest texts, the Homilies d'Organyà.^[13]

The Greek word may already occur in Mycenaean.^[14] Its origin is unknown; it is probably a loanword from the East, perhaps connected with ἄγγαρος (ángaros, “Persian mounted courier”), which may be Iranian.^[7][1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), where the archangel brings the hero a message in his sleep: El ángel Gabriel a él vino en sueño “the angel Gabriel came to him in a dream”.^[4][15][3] A Mozarabic document from Toledo of 1197 is the first original record the DEMel lists.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the word for every heavenly spirit, and distinguished the good angel, also ángel de luz, from the evil one, the devil;^[16] Berceo already writes of ángeles infernales.^[4][16] Nebrija in 1495 glossed it as “messenger of God”, Latin angelus.^[17] Covarrubias in 1611 explained that the Greek name means “messenger”, and that the heavenly spirits are so called because they come to earth with God's messages.^[18]

The Autoridades (1726) defined the word as a spiritual being, applied it to all nine choirs and also to the lowest of them, and recorded ángel custodio or de la guarda, a bar shot fired from ships' guns, a regional name of the ray, and the phrase es un ángel of a kind person.^[19] The Academy dictionary of 1869 adds an advantage in the game of trucos.^[20] Today the word also means grace or charm, as in tener ángel.^[6][21] In Cuba it can mean the soul.^[22]

Spanish passed the word to many languages of the Americas and the Philippines, among them Tagalog anghel and Quechua anqil.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the angel Gabriel appear to the Cid.^[4][3]
• 1197 – a Mozarabic document from Toledo.^[2]
• 1230–1264 – Berceo writes of ángeles infernales.^[4]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses ángel bueno and ángel malo.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin angelus.^[17]
• 1568 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the name as Greek for “messenger”.^[18]
• 1726 – the Autoridades records the guardian angel and the naval bar shot called ángel.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin and Greek.^[24]

Meanings

Noun

1. An angel: in the Christian tradition, a heavenly spirit created by God to serve him as a messenger.^[6][1]
2. Any of the heavenly spirits, and in particular those of the lowest of the nine choirs of traditional theology.^[6][1]
3. charm, grace, likeable manner, chiefly in tener ángel.^[6][21]
4. A person thought to have the goodness, beauty or innocence of angels: Tu abuela es un ángel.^[6][1]
5. (military, historical) A bar shot: an iron bar with a ball at each end, fired to break an enemy ship's rigging.^[6][19]
6. (Cuba) The soul, the spiritual part of a person.^[22]

Word family

• angelical
• angelito
• angelote
• angelología

Related words

• angélico
• ángelus
• arcángel
• evangelio
• Late Latin angelus
• Portuguese anjo

Usage notes

Common set phrases are ángel de la guarda or ángel custodio “guardian angel” and ángel caído “fallen angel”, the devil.^[19][6] The word is used affectionately of children.^[25]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ángel
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 269
4. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. ángel
5. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ángel
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. ángel
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. ángel
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ángel
10. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. angelus
11. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 257
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 457a
13. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 314
14. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 308
16. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. ángel
17. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 293
18. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 178
19. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 293
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 51
21. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. ángel
22. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ángel
23. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. ángel
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 73
25. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ángel