comendador

Forms

comendador m (plural comendadores, feminine comendadora, feminine plural comendadoras)^[1] Medieval documents also have commendador and alcomendador, besides the Latin commendator.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin commendator (“one who recommends”), according to the Academy, Moliner and Wiktionary.^[3][4][1] Corominas instead takes it as an adaptation of Old French comandeor (“one who commands”), beside the verb comendar, which is from Latin commendo (“to entrust; to recommend”).^[5] The Academy's 1884 dictionary already gave the Latin word, derived from the verb meaning “to recommend, entrust”.^[6]

The Latin noun is formed from the verb with the agent suffix -tor, and the verb from con- and mando (“to entrust, enjoin”).^[7][8][1] In Medieval Latin the noun named the head of a house of the Hospitallers or of the Teutonic Order.^[9] Covarrubias explained the name by the revenues the knights held as an encomienda, in trust, since as religious they could not hold church benefices in their own name.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas cites a charter of 1184 from Oelschläger's list; the BDELC gives 1174.^[5][11] DEMel has the Latin forms commendator and comendator in charters of Aragon (1162) and León and Castile (1170).^[2] The CDH's first Spanish hit is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), which grants the town a master, a comendador and a merino under the king; a pleading of 1225 names el comendador don Pedro Perez.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts a comendador was the knight holding a commandery of a military order, such as Calatrava or the Hospital of Saint John, and also the head of a religious house;^[13][12] Alfonso X once used it to translate Latin dictator.^[13][12] The comendador mayor, next below the master, appears in the 15th-century chronicles.^[14][3] Autoridades added the superiors of the Mercedarians and of the Antonines.^[15] In the Americas Francisco Pizarro signed in 1533 as el comendador Francisco Piçarro.^[16] In the modern orders of merit it is a rank above knight and below grand cross.^[3] The thieves' cant of the Golden Age had comendador de bola, a thief working the fairs.^[6]

Timeline

• 1162 – Latin commendator in an Aragonese charter.^[2]
• 1174 – the BDELC's date.^[11]
• 1184 – a charter in Oelschläger's list, Corominas's date.^[5]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin commendatarius for comendador de orden.^[17]
• 1522 – the first record from the Americas, in Panama.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the name by the encomienda.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A knight holding an encomienda, a commandery of one of the military orders.^[3][1]
2. In the orders of merit, a commander: a rank above knight and below grand cross.^[3]
3. The superior of certain religious houses.^[3][15]

Word family

• comendadora

Related words

• encomienda
• comendar
• encomendar
• comandante
• Latin commendator

Usage notes

Comendador mayor is the rank next below the master in some military orders.^[3] Hernán Núñez, who collected proverbs, was known as el Comendador Griego.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. comendador
3. ^ 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. comendador
4. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. comendador
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 800
6. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 262
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. commendātor
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. commendō
9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. commendator
10. ^ 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. 491
11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mandar
12. ^ 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. comendador
13. ^ a b 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. comendador
14. ^ 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. 726
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 429
16. ^ 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. comendador
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 315
18. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 170