cena

Forms

cena f (plural cenas)^[1] Old Spanish texts write both cena and çena.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cēna (“the main meal, eaten in mid-afternoon”).^[4][5][6][1] Spanish kept the Latin word unchanged, and the Cid already has it.^[4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese ceia, Galician cea, Asturian cena, Italian cena and Romanian cină.^[7][1][8] The Portuguese word was spelt Old Galician-Portuguese çẽa or “cea” in the 13th century.^[9]

The Old Latin form was cesna, which Festus records.^[10][1] It goes back to Proto-Italic *kertsnā (“meal”), with Oscan kersnu and Umbrian śesna as cognates.^[10] The usual explanation derives it from Proto-Indo-European *kért-s-nh₂ (“portion”), a word for a “cut part”, from the root of Sanskrit कृन्तति (kṛntáti, “he cuts”).^[10][1] De Vaan finds the change from “cut part” to “meal” easy, but notes that Schrijver doubts it, and that the Latin sound shape needs a lost vowel or consonant between ⟨r⟩ and ⟨s⟩.^[10]

Covarrubias in 1611 and the Diccionario de Autoridades in 1729 derived the word from Ancient Greek κοινός (koinós, “common”), because the whole household ate it together;^[11][12][13] Monlau repeated this in 1856.^[11][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy): Vayamos posar, ca la cena es adobada “let us go and rest, for supper is ready”.^[3][14] There it already means the meal taken at the end of a day's march, as against yantar, the midday meal.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the cena was the main meal, eaten about three in the afternoon.^[4][5][15] Spanish moved it later in the day: Berceo's cena is eaten well after three.^[4] Nebrija still defined it about 1495 as the afternoon meal, probably following the Latin.^[4][16] In the Rimado de Palacio it seems to mean each of the main meals of the day.^[4] The Diccionario de Autoridades noted in 1729 that the main meal, once called cena, was now eaten at midday as the comida, and that cena meant the night meal.^[12]

The Last Supper was la cena from Alfonso X on, and Maundy Thursday was Jueves de la Cena.^[17][12] In Navarre and Aragon cena del rey named a tax paid for the king's table, the same as the Castilian yantar.^[6][18] Autoridades has the proverb más vale un no cena que cien Avicenas, that a light supper heals better than medicine.^[12]

In rural Puerto Rico the word has been used for a meal at five in the afternoon.^[19] In Mexico and Uruguay cena de negros is a gathering that ends in uproar.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy) has the first record, for the evening meal.^[3][4][5]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos uses the word.^[3][14]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for the evening meal.^[17]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija defines it as the meal taken in the afternoon.^[16][4]
• 1546 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls it the night meal and derives it from Greek “common”.^[11]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records Jueves de la Cena and notes the shift of the main meal to midday.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin for the first time.^[22]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the Last Supper as a sense.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. supper, dinner: the last meal of the day, eaten in the evening or at night: Esta noche la cena será ligera.^[6][1]
2. The act of having this meal.^[6]
3. A gathering of people for supper.^[6]
4. (religion) The Last Supper of Jesus with the apostles, usually la última cena or la santa cena.^[6][24]

Word family

• cenar

Related words

• Latin cena
• Portuguese ceia

Usage notes

The DLE lists a separate obsolete cena “scene”, from a supposed *ecena, from Latin scaena.^[6][24] It occurs in the 15th century in Villena: una plaça que se desía cena “a square that was called the stage”.^[14] Covarrubias already kept this word apart.^[25] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 marks it obsolete.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cena
3. ^ 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. cena
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 23
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cena
6. ^ 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. cena
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cena
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. cena
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 778
10. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 576
12. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 262
13. ^ a b Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 227
14. ^ 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. 669
15. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cena
16. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 323
17. ^ a b 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. cena
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 156
19. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. cena
20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cena
21. ^ 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. cena
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 232
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 215
24. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cena
25. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 577