asumir

Forms

asumir (first-person singular present asumo, first-person singular preterite asumí, past participle asumido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin assūmō (“to take up, take to oneself, adopt”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from ad- and sūmō (“to take”),^[1][5] itself formed from sub- and emō.^[5][6]

The simple Latin verb gave Spanish, by a popular route, sumir.^[2] Learned words of the same family are asunción (early 15th century) and asunto (an adjective in the first half of the 15th century, a noun in the Quijote), from assūmptiō and the participle assūmptus.^[2][3]

The sense “to suppose, take for granted”, common in Latin America, is from English assume.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alonso's first quotation is from a translation of Boccaccio's Mujeres ilustres (1494, quoted from the edition of 1528): Perseo, que después fue assumido en el cielo “Perseus, who was afterwards taken up into heaven”.^[9] Corominas dates the word from 1528.^[2][3] The DEMel lists a record in Berceo from a secondary source.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades called assumir “to take, draw to oneself” an obsolete word of the Aragonese dialect, quoting the Fueros of Aragon.^[11] The Academy's 1770 edition added a quotation from a Spanish version of Saint Ambrose's De officiis and kept the Aragonese legal use “to bring a case before oneself”,^[12] which the 1884 edition still lists as a legal sense.^[13] Borao recorded the verb in Aragon too.^[14]

In the Americas it is recorded from 1575 in Mexico, of captives taken up into the house of the sun.^[15] A Nicaraguan text of 1865 uses it of states assuming their full sovereignty.^[15] The modern central sense is to take on a duty, office or responsibility, and to accept a hard fact.^[4][16][17] Judeo-Spanish has asumir una tareja “to take on a task”.^[18] The sense “to suppose” is used in Mexico, Central America, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Chile and Argentina.^[7]

Timeline

• 1494 – a translation of Boccaccio has assumido en el cielo.^[9]
• 1528 – Corominas's first record.^[2][19]
• 1575 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades calls it an obsolete Aragonese word.^[11]
• 1770 – the Academy defines it as “to take into or for oneself”.^[12]
• 1865 – in Nicaragua, of states assuming their sovereignty.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin ad and sumere.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To draw to oneself or take for oneself.^[4][16]
2. (transitive) To take on or take charge of something, such as a duty or office; to assume responsibility for it: Asumió la dirección del hospital.^[4][1]
3. (transitive) To accept and come to terms with a hard fact: Le costó asumir la derrota.^[16][17]
4. (transitive) To acquire or take on a greater form.^[4]
5. (Latin America, from English) To suppose or take something for granted.^[7][1]

Word family

• asumible

Related words

• asunción
• sumir
• asunto
• consumir
• presumir
• resumir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 335
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sumir
4. ^ 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. asumir
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. asumir
8. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. asumir
9. ^ a b 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. 426
10. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 451
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 372
13. ^ 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. 113
14. ^ Borao, Jerónimo (1908), Diccionario de voces aragonesas, 2nd ed., Zaragoza: Imprenta del Hospicio Provincial, p. 11
15. ^ a b c d 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. asumir
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. asumir
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. asumir
18. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. asumir
19. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 63