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ciudadano

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word ciudadano

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1220–1250 Gonzalo de Berceo, Milagros de Nuestra Señora More words from the 13th century
Ultimate origin
Latin civis

Pronunciation

  • /θjudaˈdano/, [θju.ð̞aˈð̞a.no], /sjudaˈdano/[1]

Forms

ciudadano (feminine ciudadana, masculine plural ciudadanos, feminine plural ciudadanas)[1] Old Spanish wrote cibdadano, çibdadano, çidadanos and ciudadano;[2][3] Terreros notes in 1786 that the old form was cibdadano.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish ciudad + -ano.[1][4][5] Its earliest form is Old Spanish cibdadano, from the medieval noun cibdad;[6] the spelling ⟨ciudad⟩ became usual only around Nebrija's time.[6]

The noun continues Latin cīvitās, “the body of citizens of a state or city”, a derivative of cīvis (“citizen”); the sense “city” appears in Tacitus and a few other authors of the Silver Age, and replaced urbs in all the Romance languages.[6] From the Latin word for “citizen” Spanish also took learned words such as civil.[6] citadino is its doublet.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo uses the word in the Milagros de Nuestra Señora (1220–1250): recibió la pecunia el burgués çibdadano, “the city burgher received the money”.[7][6][5] The sense is “inhabitant of a city”, which is also the one in Alfonso X's Estoria de España.[8]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X also used it for the people of the cities of the Roman Empire.[8] In the 16th and 17th centuries the word named a social rank: Covarrubias in 1611 defines the ciudadano as one who lives in a city on the income of his estate, between the knights or hidalgos and the craftsmen, a class that included lawyers and men of letters.[9] Autoridades defines him as the resident of a city who enjoys its privileges and bears its charges.[10] In 1817 the Academy marked the sense of a middle rank as old, and noted that it was still used in Catalonia and elsewhere.[11]

The political sense came in the 19th century: Domínguez in 1846 explained that in politics ciudadano covers everyone who enjoys the rights that the constitution of the state grants, natives and naturalized foreigners alike, and recorded it as the form of address of the French republicans.[12] The Academy added the sense “one who has the rights of citizenship” in 1869.[13] Moliner observes that the word now carries a moral value, as in being a good or a bad citizen.[14] The first records from the Americas, from 1517 in Santo Domingo, still have the medieval spelling cibdadano.[15]

Timeline

  • 1220–1250 – Berceo's Milagros has çibdadano, the first record.[7][5]
  • 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses cibdadano for a citizen of Rome under Tarquin.[8]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija: ciudadano desta ciudad, Latin civis, oppidanus.[16]
  • 1517 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.[15]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias describes the ciudadano as a middle rank between the nobility and the craftsmen.[9]
  • 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the citizen by the privileges and charges of a city.[10]
  • 1817 – the Academy marks the sense of a middle rank as old except in Catalonia.[11]
  • 1846 – Domínguez records the political sense and the French republicans' form of address.[12]
  • 1869 – the Academy adds “one who has the rights of citizenship”.[13]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Born in or living in a city; also used as a noun.[17][1]
  2. Of or relating to a city or its citizens: seguridad ciudadana “public safety”.[17][1][14]

Noun

  1. citizen: a member of a state who holds political rights and is subject to its laws: Es ciudadana chilena desde hace años.[17][1]
  2. A city-dweller.[1][17]
  3. (historical) A commoner, hombre bueno.[17]
  4. (historical) A free inhabitant of an ancient city.[17]

Word family

  • ciudadanía
  • conciudadano
  • ciudad
  • civil
  • citadino
  • ciudadela
  • Latin civis

Usage notes

Ciudadano del mundo is a cosmopolitan person.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ciudadano
  3. ^ a b Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 439
  4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1667
  5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ciudad
  6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 93
  7. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. s.v. ciudadano
  8. ^ 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. ciudadano
  9. ^ 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. 613
  10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 364
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 204
  12. ^ 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. 393
  13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 177
  14. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ciudadano
  15. ^ 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. cibdadano
  16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 326
  17. ^ 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. ciudadano
Cite this entry

“Ciudadano.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/ciudadano. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·