artista

Forms

artista m or f by sense (plural artistas)^[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Medieval Latin artista (“student or master of the liberal arts”), which Gómez de Silva derives from ars (“skill, art”) and the agent suffix.^[2][3] Bénaben and Vox allow that it may also have come from Italian artista, recorded from the end of the 13th century as a borrowing of the same Medieval Latin word.^[4][5][6] Corominas lists it simply among the derivatives of arte, and Wiktionary also analyses it as a Spanish derivative of that noun with -ista.^[7][8][1]

The Latin noun goes back to *artis and *h₂r̥tís (“the fitting”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hits are in the Aragonese translations of Juan Fernández de Heredia: the Parallel Lives of Plutarch (1379–1384) and the Gran crónica de España (1385).^[10] DEMel lists an earlier artistas in the Libro del Tesoro, dated to the end of the 13th century.^[11] In Villasandino the artistas stand beside laymen and rhetoricians as men of learning, and Villena (1428) calls the practitioner of astrology el artista.^[10] The Breve diccionario dates the word to 1495, Nebrija, who glosses it with Latin technites and artitus.^[8][12]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined the artista as the master of an art, but said that in modern use the word meant one who practised the mechanical arts, commonly called oficial or menestral, and was little used even so.^[13] It also named the student of the arts course at the university, the colegial artista, a sense attested in Cuzco in 1652, and poetically the maker of a work, as in Jacinto Polo's el Celestiál y eterno Artista.^[13][14] Terreros noted that the Castilian word for the craftsman was more often oficial, menestral or artesano.^[15]

In the 19th century the word spread to trades and entertainers: Domínguez complained that bullfighters, bad actors and cobblers called themselves distinguished artists, and Baralt mocked the custom, brought from France, of artisans calling themselves artistas.^[16][17] The Academy's edition of 1884 first defined the word by the fine arts.^[18] The present dictionary adds the professional performer and the person who does something to perfection, and marks the student sense as obsolete.^[19] In Nicaragua, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Peru, Argentina and Uruguay an artista is also someone who can convincingly fake feelings.^[20]

Timeline

• 1379–1384 – Fernández de Heredia's translation of Plutarch's Lives.^[10]
• 1428 – Villena's Tratado de astrología calls the astrologer el artista.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary, the Breve diccionario's first record.^[8][12]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “an artificer”.^[21]
• 1652 – artistas as students of arts in Cuzco, the first record from the Americas.^[14]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the craftsman and student senses.^[13]
• 1832 – the adjective artístico.^[8]
• 1855 – Baralt criticises the French fashion of craftsmen calling themselves artistas.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy defines the word by the fine arts.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. An artist, a person who practises one of the fine arts (bellas artes).^[19][1]
2. A person with the gift or skill needed for one of the fine arts: Su hija es una artista nata.^[19]
3. A performer in the theatre, cinema, circus or another show.^[19][1]
4. A craftsman, an artisan (artesano).^[19]
5. A person who does something to perfection: Es un artista con el balón.^[19][22]
6. (Latin America) Someone who can fake feelings or sensations convincingly.^[20]

Adjective

1. (obsolete) Of a student: following the course of arts at a university.^[19][18]

Word family

• artístico

Related words

• arte
• artesano
• Latin ars

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. artista
3. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. artista
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. artista
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. artista
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 363
8. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arte
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. artista
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. artista
12. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 297
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 427
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. artista
15. ^ 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, 164
16. ^ 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. 183
17. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. s.v. artista
18. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 106
19. ^ 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. artista
20. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. artista
21. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 71
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. artista