casi

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin quasi (“as if; about”), in a semi-learned form.^[2] Corominas and Wiktionary describe it as taken from Latin.^[2][3][4][1] It is semi-learned in the other Romance languages too: Italian quasi, quaise and acais in Portuguese dialects, and even Old Occitan cais and Old Catalan quaix, since a popular Catalan form would have been *ques.^[2][5][6] Beside it Spanish has the doublet cuasi: Corominas explains the pair by the word's double pronunciation, unstressed and stressed.^[2][1]

Old Spanish said fascas or hascas “almost, as if”, frequent from Berceo to Juan Ruiz.^[2] Corominas finds the usual explanations unconvincing and tentatively relates it to Galician agás and Old Galician-Portuguese erga or ergo “except”.^[2]

The Latin word is a univerbation of quam (“as, how”) and sī (“if”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to 1406–1412, in González de Clavijo.^[2][3] The CDH has earlier hits, but the first of them are the personal name Cassi and the place name monte Cassi.^[8] Corominas notes that in older texts the word was often used with the Latin sense “as if”.^[2] Nebrija's Spanish–Latin Vocabulario (c. 1495) has „Casi adverbio. quasi. prope. propemodum”, and the Amadís (c. 1496) speaks of a head left „casi deshecha”, almost shattered.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija also used casi as a preposition rendering Latin circiter “about”.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as “lacking little to reach or to be something”.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades recorded the repeated casi casi, which expresses hesitation, with quotations from Quevedo and Cervantes.^[13] By 1817 the Academy marked casi contrato as obsolete in favour of cuasi contrato.^[14] Domínguez in 1846 added the sense “hardly”, as in casi no se detuvo.^[15]

Moliner records the ironic ¡casi nada! and the rejoinder sin casi.^[16] In Argentina the saying por casi nadie se muere contrasts what nearly happens with what does.^[17] Basque borrowed the word as Basque kasik.^[18]

Timeline

• 1406–1412 – first record, in González de Clavijo.^[2][3]
• 1492 – Nebrija renders Latin ferme, pene and prope as casi.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Vocabulario gives the Latin equivalents quasi, prope and propemodum.^[9]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the adverb.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy lists casi que and marks casi contrato as obsolete.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. quasi”.^[20]

Meanings

Adverb

1. almost, nearly: Son casi las diez.^[4][1]
2. Repeated, or followed by que, for emphasis: Casi casi perdemos el tren.^[4][16]
3. (colloquial) Expressing a hesitant preference: Casi prefiero ir andando.^[21][16]
4. ¡casi nada!: ironic, stressing that something is important.^[16]

Related words

• cuasi
• Latin quasi

Usage notes

The variant cuasi is still used in popular speech in Spain and the Americas.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 908
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. casi
4. ^ a b c 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. casi
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5335
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. quasi
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. casi
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. 643
10. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 312
11. ^ a b 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. casi
12. ^ 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. 454
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. casi
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 186
15. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 354
16. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. casi
17. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 101
18. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 629
19. ^ 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. casi
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 206
21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. casi