consejo

Forms

consejo m (plural consejos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote conseio, consejo, conseyo and, in the Cid manuscript, consego;^[2][3] conseyllo and conseillo occur in eastern texts.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish consejo, inherited from Latin cōnsilium (“deliberation, consultation; advisory assembly; advice”).^[4][5][6][1] The Latin word has the same origin as cónsul and cōnsulō (“to consult”).^[4][5] Spanish also has the learned doublet consilio, and English counsel is a cognate.^[1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese conselho, Galician consello, Asturian conseyu, Catalan consell, Occitan conselh, French conseil and Italian consiglio.^[7][8][9] Coromines notes that in Catalan it merged with concilium (“assembly”), so that the Catalan word also took over the sense “council”.^[9]

The OLD analyses cōnsilium as cōnsulō with the suffix -ium.^[10][1] De Vaan derives it instead from cōnsul, from Proto-Italic *kom-sel- “adviser”; he traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *selh₁- (“to take”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Cid says con vuestro consejo bastir quiero dos arcas “with your counsel I want to make ready two chests”.^[4][12][13] The sense is “opinion given or taken on what to do”, which the Cid also uses for a decision taken.^[3][13] The 1208 Cortes of León, the first hit with no later copy, have avido conseio “having taken counsel”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts use the word for advice, for a decision, for a means or remedy, and for an advisory assembly.^[14][3] Its plural gave conseja, first “a gathering for talk” and then “a moral tale”, named after the advice with which such tales ended.^[4][5] The agent noun consejero appears in a charter of 1076, earlier than consejo itself.^[4][5]

Covarrubias in 1611 gave the senses “opinion given or taken” and “the tribunal of the supreme judges”, and, following older writers, traced the Latin word to con and sileo “to be silent”.^[15] Autoridades describes the royal councils, chief among them that of Castile, beside those of the Indies, the Orders and the Treasury.^[16] The Academy marked “means, way” as old from 1817 on, and in thieves' cant the word meant “a cunning pimp”.^[17][18][19] Today the word names the governing or advisory bodies of states and companies (consejo de ministros, consejo de administración) and their meetings.^[6][20]

In Cuba a consejo de vecinos is a residents' committee for a block of flats.^[21] Through Spanish the word passed into Tagalog and Cebuano as konseho, and into Chavacano.^[1]

Timeline

• 1076 – first record of consejero, in a charter.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has consejo “counsel” and the verb consejar.^[4][12]
• 1208 – conseio in the acts of the Cortes of León.^[12]
• 1250–1284 – Alfonso X's prose uses it for advice, a remedy, a decision and an assembly.^[14]
• 1330 – first record of conseja in the sense “moral tale”.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin consilium and consultatio.^[22]
• 1529 – first record from the Americas: the town council of a city in Nicaragua.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the sense “supreme tribunal”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology consilium.^[24]

Meanings

Noun

1. advice, counsel: an opinion given to guide how someone should act: Le pedí consejo antes de firmar.^[6][1]
2. A council or board: a body that advises, administers or directs an organisation, as in consejo de ministros.^[6][1]
3. A meeting of such a body.^[6]
4. (historical) One of the supreme councils that assisted the king in government and justice, named after its territory or field: Consejo de Castilla, Consejo de Indias.^[6][16]

Word family

• aconsejar
• conseja
• consejero
• desaconsejar
• consejar

Related words

• concejo
• consilio
• cónsul
• consultar
• Latin cōnsilium
• English counsel

Usage notes

The proverb consejos vendo y para mí no tengo mocks those who advise others and do not follow their own advice.^[1][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. consejo
3. ^ a b c d Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 137
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 177
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. consejo
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. consejo
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 884
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. consejo
13. ^ a b 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. 762
14. ^ 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. consejo
15. ^ 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. 503
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 525
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 229
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 200
19. ^ Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 170
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. consejo
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. consejo
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 317
23. ^ 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. consejo
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 279