compañía

Forms

compañía f (plural compañías)^[1] Old Spanish spellings include conpannia, conpania, conpañia, compannia and compainnia; the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca has companyía.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Old Spanish compaña (“company, retinue”) + -ía, according to the DLE and Wiktionary, which describes it as the older noun assimilated to the nouns in ⟨-ía⟩.^[4][1] Corominas and Alonso derive it instead from compaño (“companion”).^[5][6]

compaña, still used in Asturias and popular in Argentina, continues Late Latin *compania.^[5][7][1] It has the same origin as compaigne, Old Occitan companha, Catalan companya and Portuguese companha.^[7] According to Corominas it was formed at the same time as Merovingian Latin companio (“companion”), a calque of Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌹𐌱𐌰 (gahlaiba, “companion”), from 𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍆𐍃 (hlaifs, “bread”) and a prefix 𐌲𐌰- (ga-) meaning “together”.^[5][8] Lehmann reports the reverse view, that the Gothic word is a calque of a military Vulgar Latin form of the Latin word.^[9] Wiktionary makes the Latin word, first found in the Lex Salica, a calque of Proto-West Germanic *gahlaibō (“messmate”), and analyses it as con- (“with”) and panis (“bread”): the companion is the one who shares bread.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in a letter recalling el amor e la conpannia que yo e ti ovyemos en nuestra mançebia “the love and companionship that you and I had in our youth”.^[3] The Cortes de León of 1208 speak of the honoured compannia of the bishops.^[3] Corominas dated the word to Berceo (1220–50).^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is the fact of accompanying or being with someone, as in Berceo's tal omne entre sue compañía.^[6][3] By the 15th century it also meant an association of people joined for a common end, and Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 renders it with comitatus, societas and contubernium.^[6][11] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as a partnership sharing gains and losses, and gave the senses “spouse”, from the Quijote, and “household, servants”; it also reported Covarrubias's derivation from Latin compar “equal”.^[12] In the Americas the word is recorded from 1525, for a mining partnership in Mexico and for trading partnerships in Panama.^[13] The DLE now gives the commercial company, the theatre company and the military unit commanded by a captain.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) has conpannia.^[3]
• 1208 – the Cortes de León write compannia.^[3]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca has companyía.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, the first record in Corominas.^[10][5]
• 1254 – the Fuero juzgo of Alfonso X's time uses conpannia for company, presence.^[14]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary uses it for comitatus and societas.^[11]
• 1525 – the first records from the Americas, in Mexico City and Panama.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a partnership and gives the senses “spouse” and “household”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fact of accompanying someone, company: hacer compañía, dama de compañía.^[4][1]
2. The person or people who accompany someone.^[4]
3. A company, firm: an association of people joined for a common end, usually commercial: compañía de seguros, compañía aérea.^[4][1]
4. A troupe of actors, singers or dancers.^[4]
5. (military) A company: a unit of infantry, engineers or a service, usually commanded by a captain and part of a battalion.^[4]
6. (obsolete) An alliance or confederation.^[4]

Related words

• acompañar
• compañero
• compaña
• Late Latin companio

Usage notes

Animal de compañía is a pet.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. compañía
3. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. compañía
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. compañía
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 161
6. ^ a b c 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. 733
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Feist, Sigmund (1939), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, 3rd ed., Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Lehmann, Winfred P. (1986), A Gothic Etymological Dictionary, based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. compañero
11. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. compañía
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. compañía
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. compañía
14. ^ 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. compañía