asegurar

Forms

asegurar (first-person singular present aseguro, first-person singular preterite aseguré, past participle asegurado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote assegurar beside asegurar, and in the 13th century the verb without the prefix, segurar, was the usual form.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish assegurar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *assēcūrāre (“to make safe”), a verb formed with ad- on Latin sēcūrus (“free from care, safe”).^[1][3][4][5] The Medieval Latin verb assēcūrāre, found from the 12th century, is taken to be a borrowing from Romance.^[1] The Academy has explained the Spanish verb since 1884 as a- plus seguro, and Corominas lists it among the derivatives of that adjective.^[6][7][8][2] According to Corominas, the prefixed form occurs from the mid-13th century and prevails in the 14th, while the older segurar was the general form in Berceo and still occurs in the Rimado de Palacio and in Nebrija.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese assegurar, Occitan assegurar, French assurer, Italian assicurare and Sardinian assegurare.^[3][1][9] Meyer-Lübke regards Romanian asigura as a new formation.^[3]

The Latin adjective is made of sē- (“without”) and cūra (“care”), so that it first meant “free from worry”.^[10][11][1] Cuervo bases every sense of the Spanish verb on this original “make secure”.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in the biblical Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where envoys to the camp at Galgal beg the man of Israel: „Avenos mercet de nos e asseguranos” “have mercy on us and make us safe”, and Joshua grants them safety (assegurolos).^[13][14] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223) is the first text without a later copy.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has the main senses: to fix something firmly, to hold a person so that he can neither flee nor defend himself, to free someone from fear, and to make someone certain of a fact.^[15] The Tentative Dictionary gives the sense “to give someone certainty of what one says” from the Conde Lucanor.^[16]

In 1611 Covarrubias defined it as persuading someone that he is safe, as a hunter does with birds and game, and also as giving a guarantee that property will not be lost.^[17] The Diccionario de Autoridades put first the sense “to affirm with assurance”, then “to make firm”, as in securing a building or a nail in a wall.^[18] The commercial sense of the noun seguro “insurance” is first recorded in Autoridades, while seguro as a noun goes back to about 1570.^[8][2] Already in 1523 a document from Cuba speaks of a hundred ducats “asegurados” on a ship.^[19] In 1855 Baralt condemned several figurative uses as Gallicisms.^[20]

Today the DLE lists the senses of fixing, stating with certainty, confirming, protecting, guaranteeing and insuring, and marks the sense “to stop a prisoner from escaping” as obsolete.^[21] In Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Tenerife the verb also means to hit something with a blow or a shot.^[22]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) has asseguranos and assegurolos.^[13]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo has the first instance without a later copy.^[13]
• 13th century – segurar is still the more frequent form;^[2] asegurar prevails from the 14th century.^[2]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for holding someone fast.^[15]
• 1335 – Don Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor, the first text in the Tentative Dictionary.^[16]
• 1523 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba, of goods insured on a ship.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the senses “to reassure” and “to guarantee against loss”.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from a and seguro.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To secure, make fast or firm: Aseguró la escalera contra la pared.^[21][1]
2. To assure, state something with certainty: Le aseguro que el tren sale a las ocho.^[21][1]
3. To confirm the truth of something;^[21][1] (reflexive) to make sure: Asegúrate de apagar la luz.^[21][1]
4. To protect someone or something from harm.^[21]
5. To guarantee, make something certain to happen.^[21][1]
6. To insure: to take out an insurance contract on someone or something.^[21][1]
7. (climbing) To belay.^[1]
8. (obsolete) To make a prisoner's escape impossible.^[21]

Word family

• asegurable
• aseguración
• asegurador
• aseguradora
• aseguramiento
• aseguranza

Related words

• curar
• seguro
• seguridad
• Latin sēcūrus
• Portuguese assegurar

Usage notes

In the Canary Islands (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Tenerife) the verb also means to hit the mark with a blow or a shot.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 295
3. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. asegurar
5. ^ 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. 405
6. ^ 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. 107
7. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. asegurar
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seguro
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 379
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sēcūrus
11. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 1, 675
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
14. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. asegurar
15. ^ 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. asegurar
16. ^ 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. 54
17. ^ 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. 1, 232
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 440
19. ^ 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. asegurar
20. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 97
21. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. asegurar
22. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. asegurar