aprender

Forms

aprender (first-person singular present aprendo, first-person singular preterite aprendí, past participle aprendido)^[1] Old Spanish had a strong preterite apriso and past participle apreso beside aprendió and aprendido.^[2][3] The forms bien apreso “happy” and mal apreso “unfortunate” are found in the Libro de Apolonio and Juan Ruiz.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish aprender, inherited from Latin apprendō (“to seize, grasp”), the contracted form of apprehendō (“to seize”).^[2][5][6][1] The Latin verb meant “to seize”, then “to grasp with the senses or the mind”, which gave the sense “to learn”.^[7][8] The REW records both meanings in Romance: Romanian aprinde “to kindle”, and Italian apprendere, French apprendre and Portuguese aprender “to learn”.^[9] Galician has the same verb, and in Asturian the verb means “to take root”.^[10]

The full Latin form is made up of ad- and prehendō (“to grasp, seize”).^[8][11] De Vaan derives the simple verb from Proto-Indo-European *gʰ-n(e)-d- (“to grab”), and compares Ancient Greek χανδάνω (khandánō, “to hold, contain”).^[12] Wiktionary also relates it to the English word get.^[1]

The learned aprehender is a doublet, used in legal and philosophical senses.^[2][1] deprender, used in the same sense from about 1260, is not a variant of this verb but continues Latin dēprehendō (“to catch, come upon”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds it first in the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient of about 1200, then in Berceo.^[2] The CDH has an earlier hit in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the sense “to learn”: la conpannia de las letras que aprisiemos en uno “the companionship of the letters we learned together”.^[13] The Razón de amor has por aprender cortesia “to learn courtly manners”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses it for learning by study, for committing to memory, for fire catching hold of something and for taking or receiving.^[14] Corominas finds the sense “to set fire to, kindle” in the Leyes de Moros of the 14th–15th centuries, and the Academy still listed the old sense “to catch (fire)” in 1770.^[2][15] Autoridades defines it as applying oneself to the arts and sciences, and notes that deprender was much used in the past and still was among less educated speakers.^[16] It quotes the proverb No diga ninguno no puedo aprender: tanto hace el hombre quanto quiere hacer “let no one say ‘I cannot learn’: a man does as much as he wants to do”.^[16] The 1770 edition adds Quien mucho duerme, poco aprende “who sleeps much learns little”.^[15]

In Bilbao, as in French, aprender also means “to teach” (fulano me aprendió a escribir), and so it does in Asturian and Leonese.^[2][17] The DLE marks this sense obsolete.^[6] Moliner notes the frequent reflexive aprenderse “to learn by heart”.^[18] In Guatemala Batres criticised the use of aprender for aprehender “to arrest”.^[19] The noun aprendiz was taken from Old French aprentiz and later reshaped on aprender.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – first recorded, in the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient.^[2][5]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has the preterite aprisiemos.^[13][3]
• c. 1230–1260 – Berceo uses the verb, with the future aprendrá.^[4][13]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X uses it for learning and memorising.^[14]
• 1541 – the first record from the Americas, que aprenda el dicho ofiçio “that he learn the said trade”, in Puebla.^[20]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the proverb tanto hace el hombre quanto quiere hacer.^[16]
• c. 1800 – the derivative aprendizaje is first recorded, in Jovellanos.^[2]
• 1899 – the Academy derives it from Latin apprehendere.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To learn: to gain knowledge of something by study or experience: Aprendió a nadar de muy pequeña.^[6][1]
2. (transitive) To form an idea of something from mere appearances or on little ground.^[6][18]
3. (transitive, also reflexive) To learn by heart, memorize: Por fin me aprendí la dirección.^[6][18]
4. (obsolete) To seize, prender.^[6]
5. (obsolete, regional) To teach.^[6][1][17]

Word family

• aprendiz
• aprendizaje
• aprendiente
• reaprender

Related words

• apresar
• prender
• aprehender
• deprender
• comprender
• Latin apprehendō
• English apprehend

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 4, 638
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. aprender
4. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 44
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. prender
6. ^ 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. aprender
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. aprender
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 606
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 75
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. aprender
14. ^ 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. aprender
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 291
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 353
17. ^ a b Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. aprender
18. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. aprender
19. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 105
20. ^ 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. aprender
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 80