acerca

Etymology

Corominas takes it as a compound formed in Old Spanish, from Spanish a + cerca, and dates it from the Cantar de mio Cid, after the simple adverb, which is recorded from 998.^[2][3] The DLE, the Academy's historical dictionary and Wiktionary derive it instead from the Latin phrase ad circa.^[4][5][1] Old Spanish spelt it ⟨açerca⟩, ⟨a çerca⟩ or ⟨acerqua⟩, and Asturian has ⟨acerque⟩.^[5][6]

Its parts continue ad (“to, towards”) and circa (“round, about”).^[7][8] The Latin preposition comes from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ed (“to”), and the adverb is a derivative of circus (“circle”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) uses it of place, açerca corre Salón, agua nol puedent vedar “the Salón runs close by, they cannot cut him off from water”, and of time, ca el plazo viene acerca “for the appointed day is drawing near”.^[5][10][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish it meant “near” in place and time and also in kinship, as in el pariente de mais acerca “the nearest relative” in the Fuero de Madrid, and could be used of something close to the truth.^[5][12] With de it first introduced places, then, from the late 14th century, the matter spoken about: acerca desto “concerning this” in the Cortes of Ocaña of 1422.^[5] In the 16th and 17th centuries acerca de could also name the sovereign to whom an ambassador was sent.^[5]

Nebrija renders it as an adverb with iuxta and prope.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) noted that the sense “near” was old, and that acerca de now meant “as to, about”, quoting the Quijote: lo que acerca de esto ha llegado a tus oídos.^[14] The Academy kept labelling the place sense as antiquated in its editions from 1726 on.^[5] Cuervo found that by his time it lived only in the figurative acerca de, having kept traces of the preposition and the literal sense into the 16th century.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it of place and time.^[5][10]
• 1158–1202 – the Fuero de Madrid uses it of kinship.^[5]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos has açerca del altar.^[5][11]
• 1396 – the ordinances of Barbastro use acerqua del in the sense “concerning”.^[5]
• 1422 – the Cortes of Ocaña: Acerca desto.^[5]
• 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario renders it iuxta, prope.^[13]
• 1545 – first record from the Americas, in the Río de la Plata.^[16]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades calls the sense “near” old.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin ad circa.^[17]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (obsolete) near, close by; the same as cerca.^[4][1]
2. In acerca de: about, concerning, on the subject of: Discutieron acerca de los precios.^[4][1][15]

Related words

• acercar
• cerca
• Latin circa

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 40
3. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cerca
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. acerca
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. acerca
6. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. acerca
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. acerca
11. ^ a b 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. 98
12. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 7
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 284
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 46
15. ^ a b Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 1, 106
16. ^ 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. acerca
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 13