confesar

Forms

confesar (first-person singular present confieso, first-person singular preterite confesé, past participle confesado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote confessar, conffesar and conffessar beside confesar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin confesso (“to confess”), a verb made from confessus (“having admitted”), the past participle of confiteor (“to admit, acknowledge”).^[4][5][6][1] Corominas calls the Low Latin verb learned in all the Romance languages, and much older than the late examples in Du Cange, since all of them share it; the DLE calls it Medieval Latin, and Wiktionary Ecclesiastical Latin.^[4][6][1] The Academy's dictionaries from 1884 to 2001 derived it instead from confeso, the adjective taken from the Latin participle and recorded in Spanish from 952.^[7][8][4]

The Latin verb is a compound of fateor (“to acknowledge, admit”).^[4][9][10] De Vaan derives that verb from Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₂-tó- (“spoken”), from the root of for (“to speak”) and fama (“talk, reputation”).^[10][11] profesar is formed in the same way, from profiteor (“to declare openly”).^[4]

Although learned, the verb diphthongizes its stressed /e/ like a popular word (⟨confieso⟩, ⟨confiesa⟩), an irregularity the Diccionario de Autoridades already notes.^[12] The same verb is Italian confessare and French confesser.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in Berceo (1220–1250).^[5][4] In his poem on the Mass, known from an early 14th-century copy, the faithful must forgive before they go to communion confessed: perdonemos primero, vayamos confessados “let us forgive first, let us go confessed”.^[14] In the Loores de Nuestra Señora it is confesar los peccados, penitencias tomar “to confess our sins, to take penance”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The verb was used from the start both for confessing sins and for declaring something before others: Herman the German's Psalter has Conffessaré mío peccado a Dios “I will confess my sin to God”, and the Fueros de Aragón of 1247 a confession made ante la iusticia “before the judge”.^[14] In Alfonso X's laws physicians must not treat the sick until they have been confessed, the sense “to hear a confession”.^[15] About 1495 Nebrija distinguishes confessar por fuerça, Latin confiteor, from confessing of one's own will, Latin fateor.^[16][17]

Covarrubias (1611) defines it as telling the truth when asked or of one's own accord, and lists the sacrament, confessing before the judge under oath, and confessing under torture.^[18] Terreros adds “to profess the truth of the Gospel”.^[13] The Academy recorded the phrase confesar de plano “to confess openly, hiding nothing” and the joke el que la confiese, que la pague in 1817.^[19] In the Americas the verb is recorded in debts and trials from 1525.^[20] It was borrowed into Tagalog as kumpisal.^[1]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first records, in Berceo.^[5][14]
• c. 1240–1272 – Herman the German's Psalter: Conffessaré mío peccado a Dios.^[14]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón use it of a confession before the judge.^[14]
• c. 1254–1270 – a Gospel of Matthew: confessando ellos sos pecados.^[16]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's laws use it of the priest who hears confession.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's confessar por fuerça.^[16]
• 1525 – first record in the Americas, in a debt acknowledged in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the sacramental and the legal senses.^[18]
• 1817 – the Academy records confesar de plano.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from confeso.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To admit or express of one's own will one's real acts, ideas or feelings; also pronominal: Me confesó que le daban miedo los aviones.^[6][1]
2. To acknowledge and declare, compelled by reason or some other motive, what one would not otherwise admit.^[6][21]
3. Of a penitent: to confess one's sins to the confessor in the sacramento of penance; also pronominal, confesarse.^[6][1]
4. Of a confessor: to hear a penitent's confession: El párroco confesaba los sábados por la tarde.^[6][1]
5. (law) Of a defendant or litigant: to declare something in person before the judge.^[6]

Word family

• confesable
• confesante

Related words

• confesión
• confeso
• confesor
• confesonario
• profesar
• Latin confiteor

Usage notes

Confesar de plano means to declare something plainly, hiding nothing.^[6] The verb is irregular like acertar (confieso, confiesas), and the old participle confeso survives as an adjective.^[21][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 130
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. confesar
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 174
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. confesar
6. ^ 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. confesar
7. ^ 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. 274
8. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. confesar
9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. confesar
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. fateor
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 496
13. ^ a b 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, 488
14. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. confesar
15. ^ 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. confesar
16. ^ 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. 750
17. ^ 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. confesar
18. ^ 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. 501
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 225
20. ^ 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. confensar
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. confesar