albedrío

Forms

albedrío m (plural albedríos)^[1] Medieval texts mostly write alvedrío or aluedrío;^[2][3] albidrío is found from Alfonso X to 1513, and alueldrío, with an added l, in a Bible of about 1280.^[2][3] Albeldrío and albeldrido are vulgar forms of modern Spain and the Americas.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin arbitrium (“judgement, decision; free choice”), a derivative of arbiter (“eyewitness; judge, arbiter”).^[3][4][5][1] The stress should have stayed on the vowel before the last two syllables;^[3][4] Corominas puts its shift to the i down to the stressed forms of the old verb albedriar (“to judge”), and thinks the noun may even be a back-formation from that verb.^[3][4] He finds Meyer-Lübke's idea, the model of abstract nouns in -ío such as señorío, unlikely, though such words may have helped.^[3] The DLE speaks of a change of the suffix -io to -ío.^[5] The historical dictionary finds no trace of the expected stress: the word is never clearly three syllables in verse, and in rhyme it always ends in stressed -ío.^[2] The first /r/ became /l/ by dissimilation.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese alvedrio and the popular Portuguese alvitre, Catalan albir, Old Occitan albire and Old French arvoire.^[3][7][8] Spanish took the learned doublet arbitrio from it in the early 14th century, and árbitro from the Latin base noun in 1302.^[3][4]

De Vaan finds the origin of the Latin noun unclear: it may be a compound of ad (“to”) with the root of baetō (“to go”), but neither step is certain.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from the Fuero de Guadalajara of 1219.^[3][4] There it has a legal sense, the free decision of those who judge, where no law applies: E lo que no es en esta carta sea en albedrío de buenos omes “and what is not in this charter shall be at the discretion of good men”.^[2] The fueros of Cáceres and Usagre have the same formula with alcaldes.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the word already means free will, unwritten legal custom, freedom to decide, and a decision.^[11] Moamín (1250) uses it for the temperament of a hunting bird.^[10] Nebrija defines alvedrío as judgement of that kind, Latin arbitrium.^[2][12] Covarrubias (1611) and Correas (1627) record the phrase a aluedrío de buen varón, used when a dispute is left to a wise and honest man.^[2]

The phrase libre albedrío “free will” is frequent from the 16th century, in religious and philosophical writing.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) defined the word as the freedom God left to the human will to choose good or evil.^[2] The old legal sense lived on into the 20th century, when Menéndez Pidal used it for the unwritten local custom by which Castilian judges ruled.^[2] Today the DLE gives free will first, then will ruled by whim rather than reason, and unwritten legal custom; the arbiter's sentence and the freedom to decide are marked as no longer used.^[5]

Timeline

• 1219 – the Fuero de Guadalajara leaves what the charter does not cover en albedrío de buenos omes.^[2][3]
• 1250 – Moamín uses it for a hunting bird's temperament.^[10]
• 1256–1263 – Alfonso X's Partidas have the variant albidrío.^[2]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses it for free will.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija writes alvedrío.^[2]
• 1513 – the last record of the variant aluidrío, in Pedro Manuel de Urrea.^[2]
• 1518 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records a aluedrío de buen varón.^[2]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the will's freedom to choose good or evil.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. free will, usually as libre albedrío: the power to act by reflection and choice.^[5][14][1]
2. Will governed by appetite, whim or caprice rather than reason;^[5][14] a su albedrío “as one pleases”: Dejaron que los niños jugaran a su albedrío.^[5][14]
3. (law) Unwritten legal custom.^[5]
4. (obsolete) The sentence of an arbiter.^[5]
5. (obsolete) Freedom to decide.^[5]

Related words

• arbitrio
• árbitro
• arbitrar
• arbitrario
• Portuguese alvedrio
• Latin arbitrium

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. albedrío
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 116
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. albedrío
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. albedrío
6. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. s.v. albedrío
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. arbitrium
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. alvitre
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. arbiter
10. ^ 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. albedrío
11. ^ 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. albedrío
12. ^ 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. albedrío
13. ^ 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. albedrío
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. albedrío