colega

Forms

colega m or f by sense (plural colegas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin collēga (“colleague, partner in office”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun is formed from con- (“with, together”) and lēgō (“to appoint as deputy”), with the agent suffix -a.^[4][1][5] Varro explained colleagues as those “chosen together”, and Gómez de Silva takes it as someone chosen at the same time as others to serve in one body.^[6][7] Bénaben, like the DHLF for French, connects it with lēx (“law”), a colleague being one who shares a charge with others.^[8][9]

The same Latin word gave French collègue (before 1520), Italian collega and English colleague.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Diego Rodríguez de Almela's Compilación de las batallas campales (1487) speaks of los otros sus colegas procuradores delas otras cibdades, “his other colleagues, the procurators of the other cities”.^[11] Hernando del Pulgar's chronicle, of 1480–1484 but known from an early 16th-century copy, has digno colega en esta nuestra legaçión, “a worthy colleague in this our embassy”.^[11] Corominas's first record is Pero Mejía, 1545;^[12][13] Alfonso de Palencia in 1490 had explained the Latin word without giving a Spanish equivalent.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its Latin sense of a fellow member of a magistracy, college, church or profession: Guevara (1529–1531) calls Marcus Aurelius a colega en el Imperio, and Autoridades in 1729 defined it as a companion in a college, church, school, order or the like, calling it a purely Latin word.^[11][14] The Academy later defined it as a fellow member of a college, church or community (1843), and in 1884 added “corporation or occupation”.^[12][13]

A colloquial sense “friend, mate”, used especially among young people and as a form of address is marked as colloquial and Spanish.^[4][15][16]

Timeline

• 1480–1484 – Hernando del Pulgar's chronicle (in an early 16th-century copy) has colega.^[11]
• 1487 – Rodríguez de Almela uses colegas of fellow procurators.^[11]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia explains the Latin word with no Spanish equivalent.^[2]
• 1545 – Corominas's first record, in Pero Mejía.^[2][3]
• 1550 – first record in the Americas, in Nueva Galicia.^[17]
• 1729 – Autoridades records it, calling it a purely Latin word.^[14]
• 1846 – Domínguez notes that the press has spread the stress cólega.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy first gives its etymology, from Latin collega.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A colleague: a person who shares one's profession, post, college or corporation: Consultó el caso con una colega del hospital.^[4][1][15]
2. (colloquial, Spain) A friend, buddy, also as a form of address.^{[4][1][15][16]}

Related words

• colegio
• colegial
• legar
• Latin collēga
• French collègue

Usage notes

Colega is a common-gender noun: el colega, la colega.^[4][1] The stress cólega, which Corominas calls barbarous, is now much rarer in Spain than in the Americas;^[18] Domínguez in 1846 noted that the press had made it general, and a letter from Caracas of 1813 already writes cólegas.^[2][18][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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, 136
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. colega
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. colega
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. colega
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. colega
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. collègue
10. ^ 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. 358
11. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. colega
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 172
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 257
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 409
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. colega
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. colega
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. colega
18. ^ a b c 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. 410