arrestar

Forms

arrestar (first-person singular present arresto, first-person singular preterite arresté, past participle arrestado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *arrestāre (“to stop, hold back”), formed from ad- (“to, towards”) and resto (“to stay behind, remain”).^[1][2][3] That verb is made of re- and sto (“to stand”).^[1] Corominas treats the word under restar, which in the old language also meant “to stop, stay”.^[4]

Wiktionary notes that it may have come through a Gallo-Romance form, which would explain why the stressed forms of the present have no diphthong.^[1] The Diccionario de Autoridades already reported that some derived it from French rather than Latin.^[5] For the Portuguese word, Cunha and Houaiss also allow for the influence of Old French arester, modern French arrêter.^[6][7] The same verb is Italian arrestare, Catalan arrestar, Occitan arrestar and Portuguese arrestar.^[8] In Medieval Latin, arrestare is a borrowing back from Romance, meaning “to arrest” and “to decide, decree”.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest record is the form arresten in the second part of Alfonso X's General estoria, of about 1275.^[10] Corominas's Breve diccionario dates the verb to 1400.^[4] In the CDH the earliest text is Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translation of Plutarch (1379–1384), where a fighter knocks down everyone he meets and makes the rest stop: „a los qui uenian fizo arrestar”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In 15th-century charters the verb is legal language for seizing people, ships and goods, in lists with presos and detenidos “taken, held”.^[11] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as holding someone so that he cannot go freely where he wishes, the same as embargar “to seize”, and traced it to Latin resto.^[12] The Academy noted in 1770 that it was used mostly in the army.^[13] In 1843 it added the reflexive arrestarse “to throw oneself into a hard undertaking”.^[14] That sense is still in the DLE, beside a rare transitive “to risk”.^[3] Today the verb is the usual word for the police detaining a suspect, and in the army it means putting someone under arrest as a punishment.^[15][16]

In Judeo-Spanish arrestar kept the sense “to stop, halt” besides “to arrest”.^[17] The Leonese dictionary records the reflexive in the sense “to resign oneself”.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – the form arresten in Alfonso X's General estoria.^[10]
• 1379–1384 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses arrestar for making men halt.^[11]
• 1400 – Corominas's date for the verb.^[4]
• 1439 – the Seguro de Tordesillas lists arrestados with presos and detenidos.^[11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as detaining someone and derives it from Latin.^[12]
• 1641 – the first record in the Americas, from Nueva Vizcaya (Mexico), for the seizure of property.^[19]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades mentions the view that it was taken from French.^[5]
• 1770 – the Academy notes that it is used mostly in the army.^[13]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the reflexive sense “to throw oneself into a hard enterprise”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Latin ad and restare.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. To arrest: to detain someone and deprive them of their liberty: La policía arrestó a dos sospechosos en el puerto.^[3][15][1]
2. (military) To put someone under arrest as a disciplinary punishment.^[15][16]
3. (rare) To risk.^[3]
4. (reflexive, arrestarse) To make up one's mind; by extension, to throw oneself into a hard or bold undertaking.^[3][16]

Word family

• arresto

Related words

• restar
• estar
• French arrêter
• Italian arrestare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. arrestar
3. ^ a b c d e 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. arrestar
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. restar
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 411
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 362
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. arrestar
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 670
9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. arrestare
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. arrestar
11. ^ 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. arrestar
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 220
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 334
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 67
15. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. arrestar
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arrestar
17. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. arrestar
18. ^ 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. arrestar
19. ^ 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. arrestar
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 101