arresto

Forms

arresto m (plural arrestos)^[1]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Spanish arrestar (“to arrest”).^[1][2][3] Corominas treats the verb with restar, from Latin restō (“to stay behind, resist”), and records the simple verb in the sense “stop, hold back” around 1300 and the compound in a document of 1400.^[3] Wiktionary instead takes the verb from Vulgar Latin *arrestō, perhaps through a Gallo-Romance language, which would explain why its stem never diphthongises.^[1] The Latin verb is formed from re- (“again, back”) and stō (“to stand, stay”).^[1]

In the 18th century the sense “judgment of a supreme court” was a French loan, after French arrêt: Autoridades calls that sense a French word introduced recently, used mostly of the affairs of foreign kingdoms.^[4] Terreros adds that it was used above all of the decrees of the French parliaments and should be avoided.^[5] The French noun is a deverbal of arrêter.^[1] The same word is Catalan arrest and Italian arresto.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Under arrestar the CDH has a noun arreste “arrest, detention” in Antón de Zorita's translation of Honoré Bouvet's Árbol de batallas (c. 1440–1460).^[7] The form arresto first appears in 1536, in cartas de arresto, letters authorising the seizure of goods, issued against the subjects of the king of France beside letters of reprisal.^[8] Alonso de Santa Cruz uses the same phrase around 1550, and in 1578 Bernardino de Mendoza writes of los arrestos, the seizures of goods.^[8] An earlier hit of 1528 in the Lozana andaluza is a nickname, maestro Arresto.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The 16th-century word was a term of law and diplomacy, the seizure of goods or persons.^[8] Autoridades (1726) gives two senses: the French-style “sentence of a supreme court” and “rash resolution, daring”.^[4] The Academy's 1770 edition adds “imprisonment”, used chiefly in the army, with a quotation from the military ordinances of 1728.^[9] The judicial sense died out, and by 1853 Gaspar y Roig marks it as obsolete, beside the new legal terms arresto mayor and arresto menor for short prison terms.^[10] The Academy's 1884 edition defines the word as the action of arresting, with the legal senses of provisional detention and brief confinement as a punishment.^[11]

The sense “boldness” has lived on beside them, now mostly in the plural, as in tener arrestos.^[12][13] The first records from the Americas, from 1723, include both “daring” and “detention”.^[14] In fencing arresto is a counter-attack that gains a tempo on the opponent's attack.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1440–1460 – the noun arreste “detention” in Antón de Zorita's Árbol de batallas.^[7]
• 1536 – cartas de arresto, the first record of arresto.^[8]
• 1578 – Bernardino de Mendoza writes of los arrestos, seizures of goods.^[8]
• 1723 – the first record from the Americas, in Venezuela, in the sense “daring”.^[14]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the French-style sense “court judgment” and the sense “daring”.^[4]
• 1770 – the Academy adds “imprisonment”, chiefly military.^[9]
• 1853 – Gaspar y Roig records arresto mayor and arresto menor.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy defines it as the action of arresting, with provisional detention and brief confinement.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of arresting; arrest.^[12][1]
2. Daring or resolve to undertake something hard, mostly in the plural: No tuvo arrestos para enfrentarse a su jefe.^[12][1]
3. (law) The provisional detention of a person accused in a criminal case.^[12]
4. (law) Loss of liberty for a short time, as a correction or punishment.^[12][13]
5. (fencing) A counter-attack made to gain a tempo on the opponent's attack.^[12]

Word family

• arresto domiciliario

Related words

• arrestar
• restar
• contrarrestar
• French arrêt

Usage notes

Arresto domiciliario is house arrest.^[1] In older Spanish law arresto mayor was a prison term of a month and a day to six months and arresto menor one of a few days.^[10][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 471
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 776
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 411
5. ^ 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, 158
6. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 424
7. ^ a b 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
8. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. arresto
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 334
10. ^ a b c Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 238
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 102
12. ^ 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. arresto
13. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. arresto
14. ^ a b 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. arresto