agilidad

Forms

agilidad f (plural agilidades)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin agilitās (“nimbleness, agility”), a learned word.^[2][1][3] Corominas dates it, like ágil, to 1490.^[3][4]

The Latin noun is formed from agilis (“nimble, swift”) and the suffix -tās; the adjective is itself formed from agō (“to drive, do”) with -ilis.^[1][5] Wiktionary takes the verb back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- (“to drive”).^[1]

The same Latin word was borrowed as Catalan agilitat, Portuguese agilidade, French agilité and Italian agilità.^[6][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first record is in a Bible translation of about 1400.^[9] In Enrique de Villena's glosses on the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442) a creature fasts for eleven days queriendo cobrar la agilidat primera “wishing to recover its former nimbleness”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Besides bodily nimbleness, the word had from the 15th century a theological sense: one of the four gifts of the glorified bodies after the Resurrection, the power to move from place to place at once.^[10] The Tostado (1437) calls it a gift of the glorified body that Christ used when he walked on the sea, and Hernando de Talavera (1487) lists it with impassibility, brightness and subtlety.^[10] Both senses are in Autoridades (1726), and the Academy kept the theological one, defined at length from 1884.^[11][12][2]

Alfonso de Palencia's agilidad enel entender (1490) shows the extension to quickness of mind, and later texts speak of spiritual and intellectual agility.^[13][10] In the Americas the word is recorded from 1600 in Chile, for the nimbleness of the Indians.^[14] Today it is also said of a text, a procedure or a mind that works quickly and easily.^[15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – the DEMel's first record, in a Bible translation.^[9]
• 1427–1428 – agilidat in Enrique de Villena's Aeneid.^[10]
• 1437 – the Tostado names agilidad as a gift of the glorified body.^[10]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario, the first record in Corominas.^[13][3]
• 1600 – first record from the Americas, in Chile.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it under ágil as lightness and ease.^[13]
• 1726 – Autoridades gives the ordinary and the theological senses.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the etymology, Latin agilitas.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. agility, the quality of being ágil: Saltó la valla con mucha agilidad.^[2][1]
2. (religion) In traditional Catholic doctrine, one of the four gifts (dotes) of glorified bodies: the power to move from one place to another instantly, however great the distance.^[2][16]

Related words

• ágil
• agilizar
• Latin agilitās

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. agilidad
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 43
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acto
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 165
7. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 139
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. agilitat
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. agilidad
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. agilidad
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 116
12. ^ 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. 29
13. ^ a b c 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. agilidad
14. ^ 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. agilidad
15. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. agilidad
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. agilidad