advertir

Forms

advertir (first-person singular present advierto, first-person singular preterite advertí, past participle advertido)^[1] Old and dialect spellings include aduertir, adbertir, avertir, advirtir, aduirtir, albertir, alvertir and arvertir;^[1][2] avertir occurs in Villena's Arte cisoria.^[3][4] Alvertir is a vulgar form found all over the Spanish-speaking world, recorded in Asturias, Cantabria and Murcia and in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile and Peru.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin advertō (“to turn towards; to notice”), a learned word.^[4][5][1][2] The Latin verb is formed from ad- and vertō (“to turn”).^[6][1] García de Diego calls the verb learned in Spanish and Portuguese and lists the spellings ⟨avertir⟩ and ⟨alvertir⟩ as vulgar forms.^[7] Corominas treats it in the article on verter, the popular descendant of the simple Latin verb.^[4]

The same Latin verb is Asturian alvertir and French avertir;^[8][9] French took it in the 12th century from the popular Latin *advertire, with a change of conjugation.^[8][9] The Latin root goes back to *wertō and *wert-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates av- to the early 15th century in Enrique de Villena, and DICCA-XV reports the date 1433 from the DCECH.^[4][10] The CDH has it in 1410 in Velasco de Taranto's treatise on the plague, in the phrase es de aduertir “it must be noted”.^[11] Villena's Arte cisoria (1420s) has it in the sense “to pay heed”: the carver tenga en miente e avierta sy yerran “should bear in mind and watch whether they go wrong”.^[12][3]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias explained the word as “to turn towards some place”, carried over to the mind when we turn to consider something;^[13] advertir a otro was to warn someone so that he paid attention.^[13] He also noted that advertimiento was less used than advertencia.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave “to notice with particular care”, construed with en, and “to teach, to counsel”, with a rarer sense “to look” from Saint Teresa.^[14] Cuervo divided the senses into two groups, according to whether one's own attention or another's is turned towards something.^[15]

The Academy recorded a reflexive advertirse “to realise” as obsolete in 1817.^[16] The present dictionary has the senses “to notice”, “to point out”, “to advise”, and the newer “to warn with threats”.^[5] Moliner notes the use in the first person to tell someone something that runs against what they expect: Te advierto que...^[17]

Timeline

• 1410 – es de aduertir in Velasco de Taranto's treatise on the plague.^[11]
• 1420s – Villena's Arte cisoria has the form avertir.^[3][12]
• 1424 – Villena's Tratado de consolación has advirtiendo.^[11]
• c. 1440 – the derivative inadvertencia, in Alfonso de la Torre.^[4]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary glosses Latin aduerto as “to turn something towards another thing”.^[10]
• 1560 – the first record from the Americas, in Puebla.^[18]
• c. 1575 – advertencia in Ercilla.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it from Latin ad aliquem locum vertere.^[13]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives “to notice” and “to counsel”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin ad and vertere.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To notice, observe, pay attention to: No advirtió que la puerta estaba abierta.^[5][1]
2. To point something out to someone, make them notice it; also intransitive.^[5]
3. To advise, admonish, caution: Le advertí que llevara paraguas.^[5][17]
4. To warn with threats: Te lo advierto por última vez.^[5][1]
5. (intransitive, obsolete) To realise, catch on.^[5][20]

Word family

• advertimiento
• advertencia
• advertido
• inadvertido
• inadvertencia

Related words

• verter
• adverso
• Latin advertō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. advertir
3. ^ 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. advertir
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 791
5. ^ 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. advertir
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. advertō
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 210
8. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. alvertir
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. avertir
10. ^ a b 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. advertir
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. advertir
12. ^ a b 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. 152
13. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 70
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 98
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, 220
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 22
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. advertir
18. ^ 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. adverdir
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. 25
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. advertir