comandar

Forms

comandar (first-person singular present comando, first-person singular preterite comandé, past participle comandado)^[1]

Etymology

The Academy derives it as borrowed from Italian comandare, as do Moliner and Wiktionary.^[2][3][1] Autoridades already called it a new word taken from Italian.^[4] Corominas calls it instead a late military borrowing borrowed from French commander, the doublet of the inherited comendar (today encomendar), and Segura Munguía also takes it from French.^[5][6] The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 explained it as a compound from Spanish co- + mandar.^[7][8]

The Italian and French verbs go back to *commandāre, a form of commendō (“to entrust, commend”) remade after mandō (“to entrust, order”).^[9][10][1] The same verb is Catalan comanar and Occitan comandar.^[9]

In Aragonese and Navarrese texts of the 13th and 14th centuries the verb comandar and the noun comanda meant “to entrust, commend; deposit”, and Fernández de Heredia used the verb for “to order”.^[11][12] That medieval use died out: the Academy still listed it in 1817 as an obsolete synonym of the verb meaning “to entrust”.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The military verb is first recorded in the Americas: a document of 1722 from Guadalajara speaks of an ensign and a sergeant comandando cada uno sus soldados “each commanding his soldiers”.^[14] The medieval Aragonese verb appears c. 1215 in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca, where a saint a Dios del çielo los comandaba “commended them to the God of heaven”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defines comandar as the same as mandar, used above all of commanding an army, a garrison or a detachment, and its new noun comando “command” as an Italian word.^[4] Terreros gives French commander and Italian comandare as its equivalents.^[15] The Academy has kept the military definition since 1817, from 1884 with the label Mil.^[2][13][7] In current use the verb has widened to leading a party, a company or a sports team, and to heading a league table.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca uses Aragonese comandar for “to commend”.^[11]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón use the noun comanda “deposit”.^[11]
• 14th century – Fernández de Heredia uses comandar for “to order”.^[12]
• 1722 – the military verb in documents from Guadalajara and Mexico.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades calls it a word newly taken from Italian.^[4]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as “to command” in the army and lists the old sense “to entrust” as obsolete.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary explains it as co- and mandar.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (military) To command an army, a garrison, a detachment or a fleet.^[2][1]
2. To lead a party, an organisation, a team or another group of people.^[16]
3. (sports) To lead a competition or a table.^[16]

Word family

• comandante
• comando
• comandancia

Related words

• mandar
• encomendar
• Italian comandare
• French commander

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. comandar
3. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. comandar
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 425
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 800
6. ^ 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. 400
7. ^ 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. 261
8. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 243
9. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. comandare
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. commander
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. comandar
12. ^ a b Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 724
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 214
14. ^ 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. comandar
15. ^ 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, 466
16. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. comandar