amante

Forms

amante m or f by sense (plural amantes)^[1] Old Spanish also had the apocopated amant, from the 13th to the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish amar + -nte, after Latin amāns (“loving”), the present participle of amō (“to love”).^[4][5][6] DICCA-XV and Vox treat it instead as taken directly from the Latin participle, and Wiktionary allows either explanation.^[7][8][1]

The corresponding words in the neighbouring languages are Portuguese amante, Catalan amant, French amant and Italian amante.^[9][10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first text without a later copy is the Judizios de las estrellas (1254–1260), where the movable signs make people's spirits amantes a las cosas que pertenecen al común del pueblo “fond of the things that concern the common people”.^[11][12] An earlier Mozarabic kharja (before 1174) already has amande “lover”.^[3] The Calila e Dimna (1251, known from a copy of about 1400) has the noun in a chapter title: El amante que cayó en manos del marido “the lover who fell into the husband's hands”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the word was mainly an adjective, “loving, fond of”, as in the biblical lo que Dios apareió a los sos amantes “what God prepared for those who love him”.^[11][12] Alfonso X's astronomical work names a pair of stars los dos amantes “the two lovers”.^[12] Alonso dates the noun use “a man and woman who love each other” to the 15th century, and Corominas's records of “lover” and of “one living with a lover” are from the Amadís and Luis de Granada.^[13][5]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as the present participle of amar and added the sense of someone devoted to something worthy, as in amante de la verdad.^[14][15] Cuervo documents the superlative amantísimo.^[16] Moliner notes that in everyday speech the sense “person with whom one has a sexual relationship outside marriage” has displaced the literary “lover”; the Academy's dictionary lists this sense separately.^[17][4] Santamaría and Garzón record this pejorative use in the Americas and Argentina.^[18][19] In the dialects of Aragon amante served as a polite form of address to customers, which Corriente, Pereira and Vicente take for a calque of the Arabic ḥabīb-ī “my dear”.^[20]

Timeline

• before 1174 – a Mozarabic kharja has amande.^[3]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna (in a later copy) has el amante “the lover”.^[11]
• 1254–1260 – the Judizios de las estrellas uses the adjective “fond of”.^[11][12]
• c. 1275 – the General Estoria has the short form amant.^[2]
• 1277 – Alfonso X's astronomical work speaks of los dos amantes.^[12]
• 1508 – the Amadís has the noun “lover”, Corominas's first record of that sense.^[5][7]
• 1538 – first record of the nautical amante “thick rope”.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds “devoted to something”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin amans.^[22]

Meanings

Adjective

1. loving; who loves: un padre amante.^[4][1]
2. Showing or relating to love.^[4]
3. Beloved, dear, especially in the superlative: amantísimo esposo.^[4][1]
4. Fond of something: amante de la buena mesa.^[17][8]

Noun

1. Either of two people in love; a lover: Los dos amantes se escribían cada día..^[4][1]
2. A person who has a sexual relationship with someone outside marriage; a mistress or lover: Tenía una amante en otra ciudad.^[4][17][1]
3. A person who loves something: una gran amante de la ópera.^[1][17]

Related words

• amar
• amor
• amador
• Latin amāns

Usage notes

The nautical amante, a thick rope fixed at one end to the head of a mast or yard and fitted with a tackle at the other, used to bear heavy strains, comes from Greek himás “strap”.^[4][17] Corominas dates it 1538 and holds that it passed through Vulgar Latin, its i- becoming e- and then a- under the influence of amante “lover”;^[23] Spanish probably took it from Catalan, where Coromines finds amant in a Barcelona document of 1254.^[21][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. amante
3. ^ 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. amante
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. amante
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 232
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 57
7. ^ 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. amante
8. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. amante
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. amant
10. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 219
11. ^ 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. amante
12. ^ a b c d e 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. amante
13. ^ 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. 280
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. amante
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 215
16. ^ 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, 405
17. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. amante
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 90
19. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 21
20. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. amante
21. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 231
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 64
23. ^ a b Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 258