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amistad

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word amistad

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1140 Cantar de mio Cid More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin *amicitas
Ultimate origin
Latin amo

Pronunciation

  • /amisˈtad/, [a.misˈt̪að̞][1]

Forms

amistad f (plural amistades)[1] Old Spanish wrote the word in many ways: amiztad, amiztat, amizdad, amiçdat, amizad, amistat and amistad, among others;[2][3][4] amiztad is the commonest form in the medieval texts, just ahead of amistad.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *amīcitās (“friendship”), a Vulgar Latin noun formed from amīcus (“friend”).[5][6][1] Its Old Spanish form is amiztad.[1][2] The Academy and Moliner describe the Vulgar Latin noun as a replacement of Classical amīcitia, with the suffix of abstract nouns -tās.[7][8][1] Gómez de Silva calls it Medieval Latin amicitatem, and Cabrera pointed in 1837 to its ablative in a Latin chronicle of the 9th century.[9][10]

The same Vulgar Latin noun is Catalan amistat, Occitan amistat, Portuguese amizade, Galician amizade, French amitié and Italian amistà.[4][11][1] Nascentes traces the Portuguese word through the old forms amizidade and amizdade.[12] French had amistiet.[1]

The Latin word for “friend” is itself formed from amō (“to love”).[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In its earliest records the word means a sworn pact of peace and alliance rather than a feeling.[2] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses it this way: the Cid says of a count who raided his lands Non lo desafié ni·l' torné amistad, “I neither challenged him nor gave him back the pact of friendship”.[14][15] Menéndez Pidal explains it as the pact of peace that every nobleman was held to have with every other, which had to be formally given back (tornar amistad) before a challenge.[15]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense was strong in the 13th century: in 1248 the councils of Plasencia and Talavera made nuestra amizdad firm against the council of Ávila, and the Primera Crónica General speaks of kings who made pleyto et amiçdat.[2] Alfonso X's Lapidario already has the sense of personal affection, and the Estoria de España the formula tornar amistad “to renounce the pact”.[16] According to Menéndez Pidal the Ordenamiento de Alcalá of 1348 confirmed the pact among noblemen.[15]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as love, goodwill and mutual trust, and quoted Lope de Vega on its three kinds, honest, pleasurable and profitable.[17] It also recorded the sense “concubinage”, with Quevedo's line Amistad llaman al amancebamiento, and a legal sense “favour”.[17] The Academy's 1770 edition marked the old sense “pact” and the sense “wish, desire for something” as antiquated.[18] Terreros noted that the word was used of animals too, and figuratively of things, such as the vine's “friendship” with the elm.[19] From 1869 the Academy defined it as a pure and disinterested affection that grows with contact, and recorded hacer las amistades “to make up after a quarrel”.[20]

Today the plural also names one's friends and acquaintances, and especially friends with influence.[5][8] In Puerto Rico a single friend can be called una amistad, a use attested in Zeno Gandía's La charca of 1893.[21][22] The word passed into Tagalog as amistad.[1]

Timeline

  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the word for the pact of peace between noblemen.[2][14]
  • c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio has the form amiztat.[2][14]
  • 1248 – a charter of Plasencia and Talavera has amizdad for an alliance between town councils.[2]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for personal affection.[16]
  • c. 1289 – the Primera Crónica General writes amiçdat.[2]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin amicitia and necessitudo as its equivalents.[23]
  • 1529 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua.[24]
  • 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “friendship”, “favour” and “concubinage”.[17]
  • 1817 – the Academy records the proverb amistad de yerno, sol en invierno, on how weak and short the friendship between a man and his son-in-law is.[25]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Late Latin amicitas.[26]

Meanings

Noun

  1. friendship: a personal, unselfish affection shared with another person, which grows stronger with contact: Su amistad duró toda la vida.[5][1]
  2. (in the plural) The people one is friends with; also friends with influence who can do one favours: Pidió ayuda a sus amistades.[5][8]
  3. concubinage, an unmarried couple's relationship.[5][17]
  4. A favour or kindness done to someone.[5][17]
  5. affinity or connection between things.[5]
  6. (obsolete) A friendly pact between two or more people.[5][16]
  7. (obsolete) A wish or desire for something.[5]
  8. (Puerto Rico) A friend.[21]

Word family

  • amistoso
  • amistar

Usage notes

Hacer amistad means to strike up a friendship;[5] hacer las amistades, now rare, means to make up after a quarrel.[5] In Tabasco and Chiapas amistad is also the name of a garden hibiscus whose flowers change colour between morning and evening and wither at night, after the fickleness of friendship.[27] Puerto Rico has amistad de cadeneta for a short-lived friendship and amistad de doble pespunte for a very close one.[28]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. amistad
  3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. amistad
  4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 495
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. amistad
  6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. amar
  7. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. amistad
  8. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. amistad
  9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. amistad
  10. ^ Cabrera, Ramón (1837), Diccionario de etimologías de la lengua castellana, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta de Marcos Bueno, p. s.v. amistad
  11. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. amistat
  12. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. amizade
  13. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ 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. amistad
  15. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. amistad
  16. ^ a b c 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. amistad
  17. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. amistad
  18. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 224
  19. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 95
  20. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 47
  21. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. amistad
  22. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 91
  23. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 292
  24. ^ 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. amistad
  25. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 59
  26. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 67
  27. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 96
  28. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. amistad

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Amistad.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/amistad. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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