cliente

Forms

cliente m (plural clientes, feminine cliente or clienta, feminine plural clientes or clientas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cliēns (“client, dependant; one protected by a patron”).^[2][3][4][1] In Rome a client was a plebeian under the protection of a patrician patrōnus; in Late Latin the word also meant a vassal or a servant of a household.^[5][6] The same Latin word is French client, first recorded in 1437, and Italian cliente.^[6][7]

The origin of the Latin noun is uncertain.^[8][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *klient- (“who leans, who depends”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱli-ent-, an active participle of the root *ḱley- (“to lean”), the root of clīnō (“to bend”).^[8] Wiktionary also mentions an older view, that the word is an altered cluēns, the present participle of clueō (“to be called, be esteemed”), since Plautus also spells it with ⟨clu-⟩.^[1][9] The DHLF calls its origin unknown, possibly Etruscan.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first records are Alfonso de Palencia in 1490, translating from Latin, and Hernán Núñez in 1499, writing about antiquity: at first the word named the Roman client of a patron.^[2][3] The diminutive cliéntulo appears in the Celestina and 17th-century authors with a more modern sense.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades still defined cliente as one who is under the trust, protection and patronage of someone whose superiority he acknowledges.^[10] The first sense of the modern world was legal: Salvá in 1846 and the Academy in 1869 added “a litigant in relation to his lawyer”, and the first Spanish-American records, from 1792 in Buenos Aires, are about lawyers' clients.^[11][12][13] In 1899 the Academy widened it to anyone who uses the services of a professional.^[14] The commercial sense “regular customer of a shop” is in the DRAE of 2001, and the DLE now puts “person who buys in a shop or uses the services of a professional or company” first.^[15][4] Computing uses it for a program that asks a server for services.^[4][1]

Bénaben notes that the idea of protection has been replaced by that of payment, though the word keeps a sense of loyalty.^[5] In Guatemala, Nicaragua and Colombia cliente can mean simply “a person, an individual”.^[16] The derivative clientela dates from the second half of the 16th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia, translating from Latin.^[2][3]
• 1499 – Hernán Núñez uses it of the clients of Roman antiquity.^[2]
• second half of the 16th century – first record of clientela.^[3]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades: one under the protection and patronage of another.^[10]
• 1792 – first record in the Americas, in Buenos Aires, of a lawyer's client.^[13]
• 1846 – Salvá adds “one who entrusts his case to a lawyer”.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy: a person who uses the services of a professional.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A customer: a person who buys in a shop or uses the services of a professional or company: Ese bar tiene clientes fieles.^[4][1]
2. A client in the old sense: a person under the protection or patronage of another.^[4][17]
3. (computing) A program or device that requests services from a server (servidor) it depends on.^[4][1]
4. (Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, rare) A person, an individual.^[16]

Word family

• clientela

Related words

• patrono
• Latin cliēns
• French client

Usage notes

The feminine is la cliente or la clienta.^[4][1] Moliner notes that it is usually pronounced with a hiatus, cli-en-te;^[17] Wiktionary gives both /ˈkljente/ and /kliˈente/.^[1] In Roman history cliente is the counterpart of patrono.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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, 100
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cliente
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. cliente
5. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cliente
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ 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. 146
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 381
11. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 253
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 179
13. ^ 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. cliente
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 232
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cliente
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cliente
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cliente