cambio

Forms

cambio m (plural cambios)^[1] Old Spanish texts write camio most often, beside cambio, cammio and camjo;^[2][3] Latin documents have kamium, camium and cammium.^[4]

Etymology

It is a noun formed from Spanish cambiar (“to change, exchange”), first recorded, like the verb, in 1068.^[5][2][3] The DLE instead takes it directly from Late Latin cambium (“exchange”), which Medieval Latin used for an exchange, money-changing and a money-changer's table.^[6][7] The verb continues cambiare (“to exchange”), a word of Celtic origin.^[5] Wiktionary derives the Latin noun from Gaulish cambion, from Proto-Celtic *kambos (“crooked, twisted”), perhaps through the idea of a turn.^[1] The same word is Portuguese câmbio, Galician cambio and Italian cambio.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the noun to 1068.^[5] In the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) a heading speaks of the manneros que camio o conpra fizieren, those “who make an exchange or a purchase”.^[9] Berceo's Loores de Nuestra Señora uses it of the crowd that chose Barabbas: ¡qué mal cambio ficieron! “what a bad exchange they made!”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

In medieval law cambio was the barter of one thing for another: Covarrubias quoted the Partidas, “cambio is to give one thing for another”, and also used it for the licensed money-changer, a sense the DLE marks as obsolete.^[11][6] The Libro de Apolonio has meter a cambio, “to hire out” a girl as a prostitute.^[10] In the 15th century it also meant a bill of exchange.^[2] In 1729 the Academy recorded the exchange of money between distant places and the premium paid on it.^[12] Modern Spanish uses it for any change, for small change, for the exchange rate, for the gearbox and for railway points.^[6][13] In the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Ecuador los cambios is the gear lever, and in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic el cambio is a girl's first period.^[14]

Timeline

• 1068 – first record of the noun and the verb cambiar.^[5]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes writes camio “exchange”.^[9]
• 1239 – a charter of Fernando III uses cambio for a property exchange.^[9]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's legal prose writes camios.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin commutatio and permutatio.^[16][3]
• 1609 – first record of recambio.^[5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it from the Partidas and as the money-changer.^[11]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the exchange of money between places.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A change, the act and effect of changing: Ha habido un cambio de planes.^[6][1]
2. Small change, coins or notes of lower value: ¿Tienes cambio de veinte euros?^[6][13]
3. The change given back after paying.^[6][1]
4. The exchange rate between currencies.^[6][1]
5. A gearbox, or a gear of a motor vehicle.^[6][1]
6. (commerce) The amount paid or charged on the value of a bill of exchange.^[6]
7. (law) Exchange, barter (permuta).^[6]
8. (economics) The price of securities traded on a market.^[6]
9. (rail transport) The points, the mechanism that moves trains from one track to another.^[6]
10. (obsolete) A money-changer.^[6]

Interjection

1. (telecommunications) over, said at the end of a radio message.^[1]

Word family

• cambiazo
• cambista
• recambio
• librecambio

Related words

• cambiar
• cambalache
• Italian cambio

Usage notes

Common phrases are en cambio “on the other hand”, a cambio de “in exchange for” and a las primeras de cambio “straight away”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. 596
3. ^ a b c 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. cambio
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cambio
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cambiar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. cambio
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. cambium
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. câmbio
9. ^ 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. cambio
10. ^ 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. 94
11. ^ 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. 397
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 89
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cambio
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cambio
15. ^ 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. cambio
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309