cimiento

Forms

cimiento m (plural cimientos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin caementum (“rough building stone, rubble”), a derivative of caedō (“to cut”).^[2][3][4][1] Bénaben traces the change of the first vowel through a form cementum and Old Spanish forms with /e/, the /e/ closing to /i/ before the following diphthong;^[5][6] Old Spanish also had çemiento.^[5][6] In glosses and other late texts the Latin word also meant “mortar”.^[2][7] The learned doublet cemento, in the Academy's dictionary from 1884, comes from that sense.^[2][3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cimento, Galician cimento, Catalan ciment, French ciment and Italian cimento, which in Italian means “trial, risk”.^[8][9][10] The French form also presupposes a popular Latin form with /ĕ/.^[11] Basque zimendu “foundation” was borrowed from Romance.^[12][13]

The Latin verb is from Proto-Italic *kaidō and Proto-Indo-European *keh₂id- (“to cut, hew”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest Spanish text in the CDH, the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), uses it of the foundations of Jericho; the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–1250) forbids building a house anywhere but en cimiento poblado, on an existing foundation.^[14] The DEMel lists a form cimento in a document of 1098 from San Vicente de Oviedo.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense “principle, root” is as old as the literal one: Berceo calls the Trinity the cimiento of the faith, and the Fuero Juzgo (1254) speaks of la rayz & el cimiento.^[14][15] The Estoria de España has the phrase abrir los cimientos “to dig the trenches for the foundations”, which the Diccionario de Autoridades quoted in 1729.^[15][16]

Cimiento real was a paste of vinegar, salt and brick dust used to refine gold in the fire; a record from Panama in 1526 already speaks of gold taken out of the çimiento.^[16][17] Domínguez in 1846 noted the jocular plural for people's feet.^[18] In Mexico, Cuba, Central America and Chile cimiento (cimiento romano) was used for “cement”.^[19]

Timeline

• 1098 – the form cimento in a document of San Vicente de Oviedo.^[6]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[14]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, Corominas's first record;^[2][3] cimentar from the same years.^[2][3]
• 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo uses it figuratively.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fundamentum.^[20]
• 1526 – first record from the Americas, in Panama, of the gold-refining cimiento.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin caementum.^[21]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades describes how foundations are laid.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology; the doublet cemento enters its dictionary.^[22][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (often plural) The foundation of a building, the part below ground that carries the whole structure: Los cimientos de la torre son de piedra.^[4][1]
2. The ground on which a building rests.^[4]
3. (often plural, figurative) The principle or root (raíz) of something; groundwork: Ese acuerdo puso los cimientos de la paz.^[4][1]

Word family

• cimentar
• cimentación

Related words

• cemento
• Latin caementum
• Portuguese cimento
• Catalan ciment

Usage notes

Abrir los cimientos is to dig the trenches for the foundations;^[4][23] desde los cimientos means “from scratch”.^[4][23] Cimiento real was a paste of vinegar, salt and brick dust once used to refine gold.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 81
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cimiento
4. ^ 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. cimiento
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cimiento
6. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cimiento
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1467
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1223
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 837
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ 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. 2, 703
13. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 87
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cimiento
15. ^ a b c 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. cimiento
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 351
17. ^ a b 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. cimiento
18. ^ 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. 387
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 244
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 325
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 603
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. 242
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cimiento