arte

Forms

arte m or f same meaning (plural artes)^[1] Old Spanish also had the apocopated form art, spelt hart as well, used in the Cantar de mio Cid beside arte.^[2][3][4] The word is used as both masculine and feminine: since the Academy's first dictionary the singular takes el (el arte), while the plural is usually feminine (las artes).^[5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish arte, with the apocopated form art, inherited from Latin ars (“skill, craft; profession”).^[2][7][6] Corominas and the Vox dictionary treat it as an inherited word, while Wiktionary calls it a learned borrowing of the Latin accusative artem.^[2][8][1] The Academy adds that in Latin the word was used as a calque of Ancient Greek τέχνη (tékhnē, “craft, art”).^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese arte, Galician arte, Asturian arte, Catalan art, Occitan art, French art and Italian arte.^{[9][10][11][1]}

ars goes back to *artis, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂r̥tís (“the fitting”), a noun of the root *h₂er- (“to fit, join”), which is also behind arma.^[12][1] De Vaan compares Ancient Greek ἄρτι (árti, “just, exactly”) and Avestan nouns meaning “reward”.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the form art means a stratagem of war: when Alcocer will not surrender, él fizo un art “he devised a trick”, leaving one tent standing and moving off with the rest.^[13][3] The same poem has sin art “honestly, without guile”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Throughout the Middle Ages the word often meant “deceit, fraud”, from the Cid to the Amadís and Nebrija, above all in the phrase sin arte “without guile”; the Conde Lucanor and Juan Ruiz use it.^[2] Alfonso X's prose already has the senses “skill, ability”, “body of rules for doing something” (el arte de física) and “cunning”.^[14] The plural artes named the liberal arts.^[3][15]

Covarrubias in 1611 defined arte as the right method of making things and recorded no saber arte ni parte “to know nothing of a matter”.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the general sense of rules for doing things well, divided into liberal and mechanical arts, and noted that some senses were always masculine.^[17] The sense of the fine arts, el arte in the absolute, is an imitation of French: Capmany still disapproved of it in 1805, and Baralt in 1855 called it French but necessary.^[2][18] The Academy defined art as the creative imitation or expression of the material and the invisible in 1884.^[19]

Fishermen call their nets and tackle artes;^[10] Coromines explains the parallel Catalan art “large net” from arts de pesca, the fisherman's skills and gear.^[6][10] In rural Chile arte means witchcraft.^[20] Tagalog, Ilocano and Basque have borrowed the word.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has art “stratagem” and sin art “without guile”.^[13][3]
• 1144 – the full form arte is recorded.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of la arte de física, the art of medicine.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives arte “science or trade” as Latin ars and techna.^[21]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the phrase no saber arte ni parte.^[16]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes that some senses are always masculine.^[17]
• 1805 – Capmany objects to el arte in the French sense of the fine arts.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and a definition of art as creative expression.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. skill, the ability to do something well: Tiene arte para contar historias.^[6][1]
2. art: the creation of works that stir aesthetic or intellectual response through visual, sound or literary means.^[6][1]
3. The body of works of art of a country, period or movement: arte románico.^[6][8]
4. The set of rules needed to do something; a craft: el arte de construir barcos.^[6][23]
5. cunning, wiles, often in the plural: malas artes.^[6][1]
6. A person's bearing or manner, with buen or mal: tener buen arte.^[6]
7. (fishing) A piece of fishing gear, a net; mostly in the plural.^[6]
8. (rural, La Mancha) A noria for raising water.^[6]
9. (obsolete) A book of the rules of Latin grammar.^[6]
10. (in the plural) Logic, physics and metaphysics, as a course of study: curso de artes.^[6]

Word family

• artero
• artesano
• artista
• artimaña
• artesanía
• artístico

Related words

• inerte
• artificio
• artefacto
• artífice
• Latin ars
• Catalan art

Usage notes

Arte takes el and un in the singular and is usually masculine there (el arte barroco), but feminine in the plural (las bellas artes) and in some set phrases (el arte poética).^[6][24][5] Salvá noted masculine plurals for fishing gear (los artes).^[25]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 363
3. ^ a b c d e Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 52
4. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 66
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 344
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. arte
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arte
8. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. arte
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c 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, 435
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 367
12. ^ a b 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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. arte
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. arte
15. ^ 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. 394
16. ^ 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. 224
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 422
18. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 94
19. ^ 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. 104
20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. arte
21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 297
22. ^ 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. arte
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arte
24. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 181
25. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 105