cisma

Forms

cisma m (plural cismas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin schisma (“split, schism”), from Ancient Greek σχίσμα (skhísma, “cleft, division”), a noun of σχίζω (skhízō, “to split”).^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned borrowing.^[1] In Church Latin the word meant a split or schism.^[5][6]

The same word is Catalan cisma, Portuguese cisma, French schisme and Italian scisma.^[7][8][9] Corominas treats the further descendants of the word under chisme “gossip”.^[2] García de Diego traces that noun to a verb chismar from the same Latin word.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it 1398, in Pero López de Ayala's Rimado de Palacio.^[2][3] The CDH has it earlier, in the Libro de Alexandre of 1240–1250, known from an early 15th-century copy, as la mala çisma; the first hit in a copy of its own time is a translation of Jacobo de Vitriaco's history of Jerusalem from after 1350: entre los moros de oriente & de oçidente es grant çisma & discordias “among the Moors of east and west there is great schism and discord”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word meant both a split in the Church and discord in general from the start: the history of Jerusalem pairs çisma with discordias, and Villasandino speaks of a schism to be ended by a single pope.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 explained it as a break with the obedience of the Pope, and the Diccionario de Autoridades of 1729 as the election of an antipope, or of two emperors.^[12][13] The second sense, “discord, disagreement”, has been in the Academy's dictionary since 1817.^[14]

In Colombia cisma has also meant “fussiness, affectation”, and in Argentina “worry”, as Portuguese cisma does.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – Libro de Alexandre (early 15th-century copy).^[11]
• after 1350 – the translation of Jacobo de Vitriaco's history of Jerusalem.^[11]
• 1398 – Pero López de Ayala's Rimado de Palacio.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's cisma en la iglesia.^[17]
• 1495 – the derivative cismático.^[3]
• 1518 – first record in the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias.^[12]
• 1789 – the play La cisma de Inglaterra is first listed in Barcelona as El cisma.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. schism, a split or separation within a church or religion: El cisma dividió a los fieles durante décadas.^[4][1]
2. A split, discord (discordia) or disagreement within a group: La votación provocó un cisma en el partido.^[4][19]

Word family

• encismar

Related words

• cismático
• chisme
• escisión
• Latin schisma

Usage notes

Cisma is masculine today, as it already was in Mariana, but it was feminine in Zurita and the feminine survived in popular use; the Diccionario de Autoridades accepted both genders.^[2][13] A list of plays performed in Barcelona wrote La cisma de Inglaterra until 1789, when El cisma appears.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 91
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cisma
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. cisma
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. schisma
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. schisma
7. ^ 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, 716
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 853
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. schisma
11. ^ 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. cisma
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. 609
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 203
15. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 238
16. ^ Segovia, Lisandro (1911), Diccionario de argentinismos, neologismos y barbarismos, Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Coni Hermanos, p. 176
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 326
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. cisma
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cisma