acusar

Forms

acusar (first-person singular present acuso, first-person singular preterite acusé, past participle acusado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin accūsō (“to call to account, accuse”); the Old Spanish form was already acusar.^[2][3][4][1] The verb was formed from Latin ad- + causa (“cause; lawsuit”): it belonged first to the language of the courts, since the noun meant a case at law.^[5][6][7]

Corominas finds no firm reason to take the verb as a learned word, though the REW implies as much by leaving it out;^[2] Wiktionary agrees that it appears as early as the Cid and shows no sound change that would mark it as borrowed,^[1] while Nascentes calls the Portuguese word learned.^[8] The same word is Portuguese acusar, Catalan acusar, French accuser, Italian accusare and Romanian acuza;^[1][9] the French verb is recorded about 980.^[10] excusar and recusar were formed from causa in the same way.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where a burgher of Burgos who has helped the exiled hero fears „ca acusado seré de lo que vos he servido” “for I shall be accused for the service I have done you”.^[11][12][13]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb meant to charge someone with a crime or a blameworthy act, and also to denounce; the subject could be a person, the conscience or even things.^[14][15] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as laying bare someone's sin or crime before the lord or the judge, adding that one's own conscience accuses one.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades also gave “to find fault with”.^[17]

The modern sense “to acknowledge receipt” was already in the dictionary of Autoridades, which held it a barbarism, but Corominas points to a similar use in the Quijote.^[2] The sense “to reveal, show” (su conducta acusa nobleza) was attacked as a gallicism by Baralt in 1855,^[18][2] and the Academy's 1884 dictionary gave both the receipt sense and the card-game sense, declaring certain cards.^[19] Colloquially it also means “to tell on someone”.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has acusado.^[12][2]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar tells of the elders who accused Susanna.^[12]
• 1218–c. 1250 – accusado in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for being accused.^[15]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses accuso as acusar en juizio.^[20]
• 1539 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it.^[16]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades derives it from Latin accusare.^[17]
• 1855 – Baralt condemns the sense “to reveal” as a gallicism.^[18][2]
• 1881 – first record of the noun acuse.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To accuse someone, blaming them for a fault, crime or wrongful act.^[4][1]
2. (transitive, also pronominal) To denounce or inform on someone.^[4]
3. (transitive) To find fault with, censure, reproach.^[4]
4. (transitive) To show, reveal: Su cara acusaba el cansancio.^[4][1]
5. (transitive) To acknowledge the receipt of letters or documents.^[4][1]
6. (transitive; card games) To declare at the right moment the cards that score points.^[4]
7. (transitive) To feel the effects of a blow; in sport, to show lack of fitness.^[4]
8. (transitive; law) To set out in court the charges against the accused and the evidence for them.^[4]
9. (pronominal) To confess one's faults.^[4][1]
10. (colloquial) To tell on someone, to snitch.^[1]

Word family

• acusación
• acusado
• acusador
• acusatorio
• acuse
• acusete
• acusón
• acusable

Related words

• acusativo
• excusar
• recusar
• causa
• Latin accuso

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 47
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acusar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. acusar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. accūsō
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. acusar
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. acusar
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. acusar
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. accusare
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. accuser
11. ^ 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. acusar
12. ^ 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. acusar
13. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. acusar
14. ^ 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. 126
15. ^ a b 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. acusar
16. ^ 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. 56
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 76
18. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 54
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 19
20. ^ 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. acusar
21. ^ 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. acusar