comisario

Forms

comisario m (plural comisarios, feminine comisaria, feminine plural comisarias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin commissārius (“a royal commissioner; executor of a will”),^[2][3] a derivative of Latin commissus (“entrusted”), the past participle of committō (“to entrust”).^[2][4] Corominas explains it from the sense of the Latin verb “to entrust something to someone”: the commissary is the person entrusted with a task.^[4][5] The Latin verb is formed from com- (“with, together”) and mittō (“to send; let go”).^[6]

The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 derived it from comisión;^[7][8][9] Alemany in 1917 gave the Latin etymology the DLE now has.^[7][8][9] Terreros gave French commissaire and Italian commissario as its equivalents.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first record is comissario in documents of 1337 on the marriage of Pedro IV.^[11] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has it from 1484, and Corominas dates it to 1511.^[12][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries a comisario was anyone acting with the delegated powers of another: Autoridades quotes the judges comissarios of the Hermandad in the Recopilación, and Cervantes's Don Quijote addresses a señor comisario (part 1, chapter 22).^[13][14] In the Americas the early records name the commissary of a religious order in Cuba (1579) and the commissaries of the Inquisition (Bogotá, 1590).^[15] The Academy listed special offices such as the comisario de entradas of a hospital, who recorded patients' admissions and discharges, and the comisario de guerra, who held musters of the troops.^[16]

Dictionaries of americanisms record that in Mexico, Cuba and Argentina the comisario was the police inspector in charge of a district of a city, and in Puerto Rico the word was used for the ward mayor.^[17][9][18] The current dictionary also lists the police superintendent (comisario de policía), a member of the European Commission and the curator of an exhibition.^[2][19]

Timeline

• 1337 – comissario in documents on the marriage of Pedro IV.^[11]
• 1484 – first record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[12]
• 1511 – the date Corominas gives for the word.^[4]
• 1579 – first record in the Americas: a Franciscan guardian in Havana who is also comisario desta ysla.^[15]
• 1590 – a comisario del santo oficio de la Inquisición in Bogotá.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines it as a person with another's powers to carry out an order.^[13]
• 1700s – first records of comisaría and comisariato.^[4]
• 1884 – the Academy derives the word from comisión.^[7]
• 1917 – Alemany gives the Latin etymology and the Cuban and Mexican sense “police inspector”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A commissioner: a person given power by another to carry out an order or handle some business.^[2][1]
2. A police inspector or superintendent, comisario de policía.^[2][1]
3. A member of the European Commission.^[2]
4. The curator of an exhibition: La comisaria presentó la muestra a la prensa.^[2]
5. (motor racing) A steward or marshal.^[1]
6. (colloquial, rare, feminine) The wife of a comisario.^[2]

Word family

• comisariar
• comisaría
• comisariato

Related words

• comisión
• cometer
• comité
• Latin committō

Usage notes

The feminine is comisaria (without an accent), distinct from comisaría “police station”.^[2][1] Comisario de guerra is a military administration officer, and comisario del Santo Oficio was a priest who represented the Inquisition in a town.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. comisario
3. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. commissarius
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. comisario
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. comisario
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. comisario
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. 263
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 245
9. ^ a b c d Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 418
10. ^ 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, 470
11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. comisario
12. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. comisario
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 437
14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 292
15. ^ a b c 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. comesario
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 176
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 384
18. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 96
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. comisario