acreditar

Forms

acreditar (first-person singular present acredito, first-person singular preterite acredité, past participle acreditado)^[1] The old spelling accreditar is also recorded.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish a- + crédito + -ar, “to give credit to”.^[1][3][2][4] The Diccionario de Autoridades already analysed it in the same way.^[5] Corominas dates the verb to 1546, among the learned words of the family of creer.^[6]

crédito itself is a learned word of the mid-16th century, from Latin crēditum (“loan, debt”), the neuter past participle of crēdō (“to entrust, give credence”).^[6] De Vaan traces the Latin verb to Proto-Italic *krezde/o- and Proto-Indo-European *ḱred-dʰeh₁- (“to place in the heart”), hence “to believe”.^[7] Wiktionary analyses this as a phrase of a case form of the word for “heart” (Latin cor) and *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place”), and compares Sanskrit श्रद्दधाति (śraddadhāti, “to trust, believe”).^[1]

Echegaray compares Italian accreditare, French accréditer and Catalan acreditar.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is the participle acreditado in Alonso de Santa Cruz's Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, which the corpus dates 1491–1516: a young captain “more powerful and esteemed” than the others.^[9] Antonio de Guevara's Epístolas familiares (1521–1543) asks what a hombre bien acreditado, a man of good repute, will not achieve in a town, and Bartolomé de las Casas has the reflexive acreditarse, to gain standing.^[9] The sense of the first records is thus “reputation, standing”, the sense of crédito “trust, repute”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The reflexive “to win fame or trust with someone” is well attested from Juan de Ávila (1533–1556) to Lope de Vega, and Covarrubias in 1611 glosses acreditarse as “to gain credit”.^[2] In 1726 the Diccionario de Autoridades gave three senses: to give strength and credibility to an argument, to vouch for a person or a business as sound, and to win esteem for someone through his conduct.^[5] Terreros (1786–1793) recorded it as a term of commerce, for giving a shop a good name.^[10]

The bookkeeping sense, “to enter a sum to someone's credit”, was marked as a neologism of commerce by Salvá in 1846 and entered the Academy's dictionary by 1869.^[11][12] Gaspar y Roig (1853–1855) added the diplomatic sense, to provide an agent with credentials to a foreign court, which the Academy defined in 1884.^[13][14] Cuervo's dictionary of construction lists its uses with con, para con and de.^[15][16]

In the Americas the word is recorded from Guatemala in 1551.^[17] In Colombia it has meant to sell or buy on credit, and in Venezuelan baseball to credit a play to a player or team.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1491–1516 – the participle acreditado in Alonso de Santa Cruz's chronicle, as dated by the CDH.^[9]
• 1521–1543 – bien acreditado “of good repute” in Guevara's Epístolas familiares.^[9]
• 1546 – Corominas's date for the verb.^[6]
• 1551 – the first record from the Americas, in Guatemala.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias glosses acreditarse “to gain credit”.^[2]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives three senses.^[5]
• 1846 – Salvá records the commercial sense as a neologism.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy defines the diplomatic sense.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something worthy of belief; to prove that it is true or real; also reflexive: Las fotos acreditan lo que ocurrió.^[20][4]
2. To give fame or a good reputation; also reflexive.^[20]
3. To vouch that someone or something is what they appear or claim to be.^[20]
4. To accredit: to certify in an official document that a person is empowered to carry out a diplomatic, commercial or other mission.^[20][1]
5. (commerce) To take a payment into account.^[20]
6. (commerce) To enter a sum on the credit side of an account; to abonar.^[20]
7. (reflexive) To win fame or a reputation: Se acreditó como buen médico.^[20][2]
8. (Venezuela, baseball) To credit a defensive or offensive play to a player or team.^[19]

Word family

• desacreditar

Related words

• crédito
• creer
• acreedor
• credencial

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. acreditar
3. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. acreditar
4. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acreditar
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 68
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. creer
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 74
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. acreditar
10. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 25
11. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 16
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 11
13. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 36
14. ^ 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. 17
15. ^ 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, 163
16. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 31
17. ^ a b 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. acreditar
18. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 64
19. ^ 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. acreditar
20. ^ a b c d e f g 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. acreditar