cesar

Forms

cesar (first-person singular present ceso, first-person singular preterite cesé, past participle cesado)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote cessar and çessar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cessāre (“to hold back, rest, stop”), the frequentative of cēdere (“to withdraw, yield”).^[5][6][7][1] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of the Latin verb, whose basic sense is “to go, proceed”.^[8][9] Corominas treats it with the other learned words of the family of ceder.^[5]

The same Latin verb is Italian cessare, French cesser, Catalan cessar and Portuguese cessar.^[10][11] Spanish cejar is usually tied to the same verb: the REW explains it by dissimilation, Segura Munguía from a Vulgar Latin *cessiare.^[10][12] García de Diego derives it from the Latin verb itself and rejects that reconstruction; he reports that Corominas also thought of the borrowed verb being drawn towards dejar, Old Spanish dexar.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, from the first half of the 13th century, already mean “to stop, rest”.^[4] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) names the vintage as a time when deuemos cansar o cesar “we must rest or stop” from all lawsuits and seizures.^[4] Berceo, whom Corominas gives as the first record, says of Saint Dominic él no cessava al Criador servir “he did not cease to serve the Creator”.^[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts often construe it with an infinitive, as in Berceo's de plorar non cesava “she did not cease weeping”.^[4][2] Nebrija glossed cessar de hazer algo with Latin cesso and noted that cexar meant the same.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as stopping a piece of work, with no cesar de llover for rain that goes on, and the church censure cessación a divinis.^[14] Cuervo collected the classical use of sin cesar “unceasingly”.^[15]

The sense “to leave an office” is in Domínguez's dictionary of 1846–1847 and in today's DLE.^[16][7] The derivatives are cesante (c. 1425), now an official who has lost his post, cesantía (mid-19th century) and cese (1832).^[6][17] Corominas takes cese from the subjunctive cese used in the orders of dismissal.^[5] The transitive use “to dismiss someone” is colloquial.^[7][17]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the CDH's first record in a contemporary manuscript.^[4]
• c. 1236 – Berceo, Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (late 13th-century copy).^[4][6]
• c. 1425 – first record of cesante.^[6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives cexar as the same as cessar.^[13]
• 1531 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias: no cesar de llover.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as a thing being suspended or coming to an end.^[19]
• 1832 – first record of the noun cese.^[6]
• 1846–1847 – Domínguez adds the sense “to leave a post”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) Of a thing: to cease, stop or come to an end: El ruido cesó de golpe.^[7][1]
2. (intransitive) To leave an office or a post, to step down: La directora cesará en el cargo en junio.^[7][1]
3. (intransitive, with de or en) To stop doing something: No cesaba de llamar a la puerta.^[7][20]
4. (transitive) To dismiss someone from a post.^[7][1]

Word family

• cesante
• cese
• incesante
• cesamiento
• cesantía

Related words

• cesación
• ceder
• cejar
• Latin cessō

Usage notes

Sin cesar means “unceasingly”.^[15][1] The title and name César, from Latin Caesar, has a separate source.^[21][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 112
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cesar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cesar
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 12
6. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cesar
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. cesar
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cedo
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cesso
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cessare
11. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1604
12. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 113
13. ^ 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. cesar
14. ^ 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. 591
15. ^ a b Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 2, 136
16. ^ a b 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. 379
17. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 122
18. ^ 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. censar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 198
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cesar
21. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 168