auto

auto¹ deed; judicial decree; religious play

Etymology tree of auto¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin agō

French agir

Latin āctus

Spanish auto

English act

Italian atto

From the same root · auto¹

Latin abigō ← agō

Latin āctiō ← agō

Latin āctitō ← agō

Latin āctīvus ← agō

Latin āctrīx ← agō

Latin adigō ← agō

Latin age ← agō

Latin agēns ← agō

Latin agilis ← agō

Latin agitō ← agō

Latin agmen ← agō

Latin agōnia ← agō

Latin ambāgēs ← agō

Latin ambigō ← agō

Latin aurīga ← agō

Latin circumago ← agō

Latin cōgō ← agō

Latin dego ← agō

Latin exāmen ← agō

Latin exigō ← agō

Latin exīlis ← agō

Latin fatīgō ← agō

Latin indāgō ← agō

Latin nāvigō ← agō

Latin peragō ← agō

Latin prōdigō ← agō

Latin reagō ← agō

Latin redigō ← agō

Latin rēmex ← agō

Latin subigō ← agō

See all derived words →

Pronunciation

• /ˈauto/, [ˈau̯.t̪o]^[1]

Forms

auto m (plural autos)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote abtos and avtos.^[2] Spanish documents from the Americas of the 1510s–1520s have abcto and abto.^[3]

Etymology

The word for a deed or a judicial decree is inherited from Old Spanish auto, inherited from Latin āctus (“a doing; an act”).^[1][4][5] It came into Spanish by a semi-learned route, and the DCECH calls it the semi-learned doublet of acto, the learned form of the same Latin word.^[4][6][1] The Diccionario de Autoridades notes that the old form was spelt with ⟨c⟩, like the learned word, and that the ⟨c⟩ later changed to ⟨u⟩.^[7] In legal language the learned form has been used as a synonym from Alfonso X to the present.^[4]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese auto with the senses “decree” and “religious play”, as well as Italian atto and French acte.^[8] Galician has ato “service for a dead person”.^[4]

The Latin noun is an action noun formed from agō (“to do, drive”) with the suffix -tus.^[9][1] De Vaan derives the verb from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- (“to drive, lead”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's earliest records are autos in a document of Alfonso X of 1254 and avtos in the Dotrinal of Maestre Jacobo (1252–1289).^[2] Corominas dates the word to about 1300, from the Gran conquista de Ultramar.^[4][5] There it means a written deed: „E los otorgamientos fechos de amas las partes, fizieron luego sus autos e firmezas de casamiento” “and when both sides had consented, they at once drew up their deeds and pledges of marriage”.^[11][12] The CDH has this text only in a print of 1503.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century auto meant a judicial decision, as in the Celestina (1499), and an act, especially a ceremony.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as a legal term for a judge's decree, and as the play on a sacred theme performed at Corpus Christi and other feasts; he also described the auto de fe, in which the Inquisition read out in public the offences and sentences of those it had condemned.^[13] In the Quijote the autos para el día de Dios are the sacramental plays of Corpus Christi.^[14]

Terreros listed several kinds of judicial auto, among them the auto interlocutorio and the auto definitivo.^[15] The Academy marked the sense “act, deed” as old in 1770, and its 1899 edition gives the plural the sense “the proceedings of a lawsuit or case”.^[16][17] The sense “act” survives in Aragon.^[18] By extension, an auto de fe is also the burning of something judged harmful or useless.^[19][18]

Timeline

• 1254 – autos in a document of Alfonso X.^[2]
• c. 1295 – the Gran conquista de Ultramar uses it for a written deed (known from the print of 1503).^[11][12]
• 1397 – first CDH record without a later copy, in a book of ordinances.^[12]
• 1499 – the Celestina uses it for a judicial decision.^[11]
• 1527 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the auto of Corpus Christi and the auto de fe.^[13]
• 1770 – the Academy marks the sense “act, deed” as old.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literature) A short play of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance on a religious or secular theme.^[19][1]
2. (law) A reasoned court ruling that decides a secondary, preliminary or incidental question and does not require a full judgment.^[19][1]
3. (dated) An act or deed.^[19]
4. (law, plural) The documents and records of the proceedings in a case.^[19][18]

Word family

• auto de fe

auto² car

Pronunciation

• /ˈauto/, [ˈau̯.t̪o]^[1]

Forms

auto m (plural autos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a car is a clipping from Spanish automóvil.^{[19][20][1][21]} The DHLE compares the English word auto, recorded in English from 1899.^[20] The longer word was taken from French automobile, recorded in French from 1852 in the sense “self-moving”.^[22] The DLE analyses it as auto- and móvil.^[23][1] Wiktionary traces the first part to Ancient Greek αὐτός (autós, “self”).^[23][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DHLE's first record is from 1901, in an article by R. Blasco in La Correspondencia de España (Madrid) on the new models at the Paris motor show of that year, where it means a self-propelled vehicle, usually with four wheels, for carrying people.^[20]

Semantic evolution

The word entered the dictionaries in 1917, in Alemany's supplement and in Malaret's dictionary of Puerto Rican words.^[20] The auto de choque, the bumper car of a fairground, is recorded from 1942 in a newspaper of Palma de Mallorca.^[20] The Academy included the word in its list of headwords in 1936 and gave it an entry of its own in 1970.^[20] It is very frequent, above all in the Spanish of the Americas.^[20] Vox labels it for the Southern Cone, Cuba and the Dominican Republic and calls it less frequent in Spain, where coche is the usual word;^[24] carro is another Latin American synonym.^[24]

Timeline

• 1901 – first record, in La Correspondencia de España.^[20]
• 1917 – first in dictionaries, Alemany's supplement and Malaret's Puerto Rican dictionary.^[20]
• 1936 – included in the Academy's list of headwords.^[20]
• 1942 – first record of auto de choque.^[20]
• 1970 – the Academy's dictionary gives it its own entry.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A car, an automobile: Dejamos el auto frente a la plaza.^[19][1][24]

Word family

• auto de choque