concluir

Forms

concluir (first-person singular present concluyo, first-person singular preterite concluí, past participle concluido)^[1] Old Spanish also had concloír and concludir;^[2][3][4] Berceo writes the participle concloidos, and a 15th-century text concruyeron.^[2][3][4] Concloír is still written in Mexico in 1529.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin conclūdō (“to shut up, enclose; to end”), a learned word recorded from the first half of the 13th century.^[6][7][1][8] The Latin verb is formed con- + claudō (“to close”).^[9][10] It meant “to shut up, confine” and, in a transferred sense, “to bring to an end” and “to draw a conclusion”.^[9][11] The same verb is Italian concludere.^[12]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *klaud-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂u-d- (“to shut”) for the simple verb, the root of clāvis (“key”); he notes that the simple verb is not yet found in Plautus, while some of its compounds are.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in Berceo, with the Latin sense “to shut”: in the Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos Peter opens the eyes he had kept concloidos, and in the Duelo de la Virgen the gate of the good garden was concluida, never to be opened again.^[2][3][14] The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240) uses it of arguing a point conclusively: bien lo concluydes “you argue it well”.^[2][14]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija (c. 1495) renders concluir by Latin concludo and colligo.^[15][16] Covarrubias in 1611 gives “to end, finish, sum up”, the legal phrase dar la causa por conclusa and concluir a uno, to leave someone without an answer.^[17] The Diccionario de Autoridades has “to finish”, “to determine, resolve” and “to convince”, the last with a quotation of Aldrete.^[18]

The 1817 edition of the Academy's dictionary adds the sense of drawing an inference, a legal sense (to close one's pleadings) and a fencing sense (to seize the opponent's sword by the hilt).^[19] Alemany (1917) also lists an obsolete sense “to kill”.^[20] Today the DLE marks “to convince” as obsolete, and keeps the fencing sense.^[7]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first records, in Berceo, in the sense “to shut”.^[6][2]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio uses it of a conclusive argument.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin concludo as its equivalent.^[15]
• 1529 – first record from the Americas, in a letter from Mexico: no e ya concloído mi negoçiaçión.^[5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records dar la causa por conclusa.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives “to finish”, “to resolve” and “to convince”.^[18]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the senses of inferring, of closing a legal pleading and of fencing.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin concludere, from cum and claudere.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also intransitive) To finish, conclude, bring to an end: Concluyó el informe a medianoche.^[7][22][1]
2. (transitive) To decide or settle something: La comisión todavía no ha concluido nada.^[7]
3. (transitive) To infer or deduce (deducir) something after weighing the circumstances.^[7][22]
4. (fencing) To get hold of the opponent's sword by the hilt or guard, so that he cannot use it.^[7][19]
5. (obsolete) To convince (convencer) someone with reasons so that he has no reply.^[7][17]
6. (intransitive) Of a thing: to come to an end: La reunión concluyó a las ocho.^[7][22]

Word family

• concluyente

Related words

• excluir
• Latin conclūdō

Usage notes

The present is concluyo, the preterite concluí and the past participle concluido.^[1] An irregular participle concluso was listed by the Academy in 1817 and survives in the legal phrase dar por concluso.^[19][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 128
3. ^ a b c Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 127
4. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. concluir
5. ^ 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. concloír
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. concluir
7. ^ 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. concluir
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. concluir
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. conclūdō
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 186
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. concluir
12. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 147
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. concluir
15. ^ 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. concluir
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 316
17. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 497
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 478
19. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 222
20. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 426
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 270
22. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. concluir