adivinar

Forms

adivinar (first-person singular present adivino, first-person singular preterite adiviné, past participle adivinado)^[1] Medieval texts have only forms in ade- (adevinar, adeuinar, adevynar), beside devinar in Berceo;^[2][3] adivinar competes with them in the classical period, and Cervantes uses both.^[2][3] The Academy listed adevinar as obsolete from 1726 to 1817; it survives as a rustic form in Murcia and the Bierzo, and as an archaism in parts of the Americas.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin addīvīnāre (“to divine, prognosticate”), Old Spanish adevinar.^[1][4][5] The Latin verb adds the intensive prefix ad- to dīvīnō (“to practise divination”).^[6][1] It occurs only once, in Pliny, and there the reading is doubtful: some manuscripts have the simple verb.^[7]

The sources differ on the starting point: the current Academy dictionary derives the word from the simple dīvīnō, and Corominas from dīvīnus (“divine, prophetic”) in its sense “soothsayer”, because divination was seen as a gift of the gods.^[8][9][10] The Diccionario de Autoridades had explained it as the prefix ⟨a⟩ and divino, since only divine knowledge can foretell the future with certainty.^[11] The Latin dīvīnō is formed from dīvīnus, itself from dīvus (“god”).^[12][1]

The same verb is Portuguese adivinhar and Galician adivinar; Catalan endevinar and Italian indovinare have another prefix, and French deviner continues the simple verb.^[13][14] Nascentes derives the Portuguese verb from adivinho (“soothsayer”), since only this explains its palatal /ɲ/.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) has Joseph ask his brothers: „E non sabiedes que adevinava omne como yo?” “Did you not know that a man such as I can divine?”^[16] The sense is to find out hidden things by a gift beyond reason.^[17][16]

Semantic evolution

Already in the Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240) the verb means to solve a riddle: the king promises his daughter to the man who guesses it.^[16] The prose of Alfonso X uses it for foretelling by omens and sorcery, for working something out by conjecture, and once simply for “know, understand”, of horses that sense a coming battle.^[17] Covarrubias in 1611 called it telling the future without certainty or grounds, a grave sin, and punished when the devil was consulted.^[18] The Diccionario de Autoridades added conjecture and the sense of making out something obscure, such as bad handwriting.^[11]

In 1770 the Academy recorded the children's game adivina quién te dio, que la mano te cortó, in which one child must guess who struck his hand.^[19] The modern dictionary adds guessing by chance and making out something seen dimly, as a shape in the distance.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has adevinava (in a 13th-century copy).^[16]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio uses adeuinar of solving a riddle.^[16]
• 1254 – the Judizios de las estrellas of Alfonso X uses it for divining.^[17]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary still has both adivinar and adevinar.^[20][21]
• 1548 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, still with adevinando.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as foretelling without certainty.^[18]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “conjecture”.^[11]
• 1770 – the Academy records the riddle sense and the game adivina quién te dio.^[19]
• 1817 – the Academy drops adevinar from its dictionary.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it “De a y el lat. divinare”.^[23]

Meanings

Verb

1. To foretell the future or uncover hidden things by omens or sorcery; to divine.^[8][1]
2. To work out something hidden or unknown by conjecture: Por su cara adiviné que traía malas noticias.^[8][1]
3. To solve a riddle.^[8]
4. To guess something right by chance.^[8][1]
5. To make out something seen dimly; also pronominal, of a thing barely visible: Entre la niebla se adivinaban los tejados.^[8][5][1]

Word family

• adivinanza
• adivinador
• adivinatorio

Related words

• adivinación
• adivino
• divino
• dios
• Latin dīvīnō
• Portuguese adivinhar

Usage notes

Adivina quién te dio is the name of a children's game, and by extension of any situation in which one must guess who did something.^[5][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. adivinar
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 498
4. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. adivinar
5. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. adivinar
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 37
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. addivino
8. ^ 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. adivinar
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. adivinar
10. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. adivinar
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 85
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. divino
13. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. addivinare
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. divinare
15. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. adivinhar
16. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. adivinar
17. ^ 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. adivinar
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. 67
19. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 73
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. adivinar
21. ^ 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. 138
22. ^ 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. adevinar
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 21