admiración

Forms

admiración f (plural admiraciones)^[1] Old spellings include admiraçión and admirazión (the latter in Correas, 1625); almiración is a popular variant in some regions.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin admīrātiō (“wonder, astonishment, surprise”).^[3][1][4] The BDELC dates it to about 1440, together with admirar and admirable, but the CDH has earlier records from the 14th century.^[5][6] The Latin noun comes from the verb admīror (“to regard with wonder”) with the suffix -tiō.^[7][1] That verb is derived from mīror (“to wonder at, be astonished”), which gave the inherited mirar.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest CDH hit is the Libro del cavallero Cifar (1300–1305, in a copy of the late 15th century), which speaks of deeds dignas de admiración “worthy of wonder”.^[6] The first hit in a text without a later copy is the translation of the Historia de Jerusalem abreviada of Jacobo de Vitriaco, after 1350: non se mueven por alguna admiraçion “they are not moved by any wonder”.^[6] In these texts the word means astonishment at something extraordinary.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The older sense is the Latin one, astonishment or surprise at something extraordinary.^[2][7] The Celestina (1499) put it in a maxim: La raleza de las cosas es madre de la admiración “the rarity of things is the mother of wonder”.^[2] Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 glosses Latin admiratio with Spanish maravilla.^[4]

From the 15th century the word also named the written sign of exclamation.^[8] In 1884 the Academy described it as the sign (¡!) placed before and after words to express wonder, complaint or pity, or to give emphasis.^[9] In present-day use the main sense is esteem for someone's extraordinary qualities, beside surprise or astonishment.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 1300–1305 – the Cifar (in a late 15th-century copy) has dignas de admiración.^[6]
• after 1350 – the first record in a text without a later copy.^[6]
• 1377–1399 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses it in his translation of Eutropius.^[6][4]
• c. 1440 – the BDELC's date of first record.^[5]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses admiratio as maravilla.^[4]
• 1499 – the Celestina calls rarity the mother of admiración.^[2]
• 1585 – the first record in the Americas, in Potosí.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary defines the punctuation mark (¡!).^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of admiring (admirar): high regard for a person or thing because of its extraordinary qualities, admiration: Siente gran admiración por su abuela.^[3][1][10]
2. Surprise or astonishment (asombro) caused by something unexpected.^[10][2]
3. Something admirable, an object of admiration.^[3][11]
4. The exclamation mark (¡!), also called exclamación.^[3][10]

Related words

• admirar
• admirable
• mirar
• Latin admīror

Usage notes

Signo de admiración and signo de exclamación are both names of the punctuation mark.^[3] No salir de su admiración means “to remain astonished”.^[11]

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. admiración
3. ^ a b c d e 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. admiración
4. ^ a b c d e 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. admiración
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mirar
6. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. admiración
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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. 139
9. ^ 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. 22
10. ^ a b c d Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. admiración
11. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. admiración
12. ^ 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. admiración