acoger

Forms

acoger (first-person singular present acojo, first-person singular preterite acogí, past participle acogido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *accolligere, formed from ad- and colligō (“to gather, collect”).^[2][1][3][4] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of coger, the outcome of the simple Latin verb.^[5] Gómez de Silva notes that in Late Latin the verb already meant “to receive”.^[6] The Latin verb is made of con- and legō (“to gather; to read”),^[7][1] which goes back to *leǵ- (“to gather”).^[1]

The same verb is Galician acoller, Portuguese acolher, Asturian acoyer, Catalan acollir, Italian accogliere and French accueillir.^[4][8][1] The forms with ⟨ll⟩, acoller and acuellir, belong to the Asturian-Leonese and Navarrese-Aragonese dialects of the 12th–14th centuries, and the Leonese Fuero Juzgo has acoyer.^[3] The present form and the old spellings acoier and acojer are the normal Castilian outcome.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), already in two senses: the raiders are told to gather up all the booty (bien acojan todas las ganançias), and men in need come from everywhere to join the Cid (acógensele omnes de todas partes menguados).^[3][9][5] The Fuero de Madrid (1158–1202) fines a townsman who takes an enemy of the town into his house.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb kept much of the sense of coger: to gather or collect, to seize, to harvest; the Academy's historical dictionary groups these first, then the senses of sheltering, protecting and receiving people, and finally those of accepting ideas or news.^[3][10] The pronominal acogerse “to take refuge” is frequent from the 13th century.^[10][11] Nebrija glossed acoger en casa with Latin suscipio and excipio in domum.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as receiving someone into one's home, with love and courtesy.^[13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades called the old sense “to seize” antiquated and recorded acoger el ganado, admitting cattle to graze in a pasture, from the laws of the Mesta.^[14] The Academy's 1884 edition added the sense of accepting news or opinions as true.^[15] Today acogerse a is common for invoking a law or rule, and the transitive verb is used of a place that hosts an event or holds a collection.^[2][16] Judeo-Spanish keeps the old palatal pronunciation of the ⟨g⟩.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for gathering booty and for taking men under the Cid's protection.^[3][5]
• 1158–1202 – the Fuero de Madrid uses it for harbouring a fugitive.^[3]
• 1211 – the earliest occurrence in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[17]
• 1284–1345 – the second part of the Estoria de España uses it for welcoming visitors.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records acoger en casa and acogerse a guarida.^[18]
• 1528 – first record in the Americas, in Venezuela.^[19]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the Mesta's acoger el ganado.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the sense of accepting news or opinions.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To receive someone into one's home or company; to take in: Una familia de Burgos acogió a los dos estudiantes.^[2][1]
2. (transitive) To give refuge or shelter.^[2][20]
3. (transitive) To accept something or approve it as good.^[2]
4. (transitive) To receive someone or something in a particular way: El público acogió la obra con indiferencia.^[2][20]
5. (transitive) To protect, shelter.^[2]
6. (transitive) Of a thing or place: to hold or contain something; to host an event.^[2][16][1]
7. (transitive, obsolete) To let another's cattle graze in one's own pasture.^[2][14]
8. (reflexive) To take refuge.^[2][20]
9. (reflexive) To invoke the benefits of a law, a regulation or a custom.^[2][20]
10. (reflexive) To use a pretext to disguise something.^[2]

Word family

• acogedor
• acogida
• acogido
• acogimiento

Related words

• coger
• recoger
• escoger
• encoger
• Latin colligō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. acoger
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. acoger
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 66
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. coger
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 32
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. colligō
8. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 74
9. ^ 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. acoger
10. ^ 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. acoger
11. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 7
12. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 283
13. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 54
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 55
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 14
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. acoger
17. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
18. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. acoger
19. ^ 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. acoger
20. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acoger