bendecir

Forms

bendecir (first-person singular present bendigo, first-person singular preterite bendije, past participle bendecido or bendito)^[1] Old Spanish wrote bendezir, with the variants bendizir, benedezir, bendiçir and vendezir.^[2] Beside it Old Spanish had beneicer or beneyzer, as in the Siete Partidas (los calizes quando los beneyzen).^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin benedīcō (“to speak well of, praise; to bless”).^[6][7][1][8] The Latin verb is a compound of bene (“well”) and dīcō (“to say”), and classical authors usually kept the adverb and the verb apart, with the meaning “to speak well of, commend”.^[9][10][11] In Church Latin it took an accusative and came to mean “to praise (God)” and “to bless”, and Medieval Latin also used it for consecrating a church or a king and ordaining a priest.^[10][12][13] Read as a Spanish word, it is bien and decir.^[1]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese bendizer and benzer, Galician bendicir, Asturian bendicir, Catalan beneir, French bénir and Italian benedire.^{[3][14][1][15][16]} The Catalan verb still had a /d/ in its oldest texts, which soon faded and disappeared, as did every Latin /d/ between vowels.^[17] The French verb likewise lost the /d/, and first had three syllables, Old French beneïr.^[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Moors of a captured castle bless the Cid as he leaves: Los moros e las moras bendiziéndol' están “the Moorish men and women are blessing him”.^[18][6][2] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) Melchizedek bendixol “blessed him”, that is Abraham.^[18][5]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the verb meant “to praise”, as in Alfonso X's Lapidario, where God's name is to be praised and blessed;^[4] “to call down God's blessing” on someone, as in the consecration of a bishop's hands in the Siete Partidas; and “to consecrate” altars and chalices.^[4] The sense “to praise, extol” runs through the medieval texts from the Libro de Alexandre on.^[19]

Covarrubias in 1611 points out that bendezir sounds like dezir bien “to speak well”, and that when God blesses his creatures it means that he makes them prosper, multiply and bear fruit.^[20] The Diccionario de Autoridades says that the verb is not used in Spanish in its literal Latin sense, but for giving a blessing, and for praising.^[21] The Academy's later editions list the blessing of vestments, bells and water, of fields, weapons and ships, and of children by their parents; in 1843 it describes the gesture of making crosses in the air with the open hand.^[22][23] By 1899 the senses were in the order the DLE still keeps: to praise; of Providence, to make someone prosper; to call down God's blessing; to consecrate; to make the sign of the cross.^[24][7]

In León the phrase bendecir la cera names the blessing of candles at Candlemas.^[25]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has bendiziéndol'.^[18][6]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has bendixol “blessed him”.^[18]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses bendezir for praising God's name.^[4]
• 1256–1300 – the Siete Partidas use the verb for invoking God's blessing and for consecrating chalices.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin benedico for bendezir.^[26]
• 1548 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, of consecrated bread and wine.^[27]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains God's blessing of his creatures as making them prosper.^[20]
• 1770 – the Academy's dictionary lists the blessing of vestments, bells and water.^[22]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, from Latin benedicere, bene “well” and dicere “to say”.^[28]

Meanings

Verb

1. To praise, extol or glorify someone: Los vecinos bendecían el nombre del médico.^[7][29]
2. Of God or Providence: to grant someone good things, to make them prosper, often with con: El cielo los bendijo con una buena cosecha.^[7][30]
3. To call down God's blessing on someone or something: El párroco bendijo los campos antes de la siembra.^[7][1]
4. To consecrate something to worship by a set ceremony: El obispo bendijo la nueva capilla.^[7][30]
5. Of a bishop or priest: to make the sign of the cross over someone or something.^[7]

Related words

• bendición
• bendito
• decir
• maldecir
• Latin benedīcō
• Portuguese bendizer

Usage notes

Bendecir is conjugated like decir (bendigo, bendije), but its future and conditional are regular (bendeciré) and its imperative is bendice.^[31][1] It has two past participles, bendecido and bendito.^[1][31]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 74
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 985
4. ^ a b c d e 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. bendecir
5. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. bendecir
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. decir
7. ^ 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. bendecir
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. bendecir
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. bendecir
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
13. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bénir
14. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 507
15. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. bendicir
16. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 77
17. ^ 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, 762
18. ^ 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. bendecir
19. ^ 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. 512
20. ^ 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. 297
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 591
22. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 473
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 98
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 135
25. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. bendecir
26. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. bendecir
27. ^ 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. bendecir
28. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 146
29. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. bendecir
30. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bendecir
31. ^ a b Cuervo, Rufino José (1914), Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, 6th ed., París: A. & R. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 132