constreñir

Forms

constreñir (first-person singular present constriño, first-person singular preterite constreñí, past participle constreñido)^[1] Old Spanish wrote costreñir, costrennir, costrinnir and constrennir;^[2][3][4] Aragonese texts have costreynner.^[2][3][4] It changes e to i in some forms (constriño, constriñó), and older Spanish had forms with g such as constringa.^[5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cōnstringō (“to bind together, tie up”).^[6][7][1] Vox calls it a popular word of the same family as estreñir.^[8] The learned doublet is constringir.^[1]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese constranger (Old Portuguese costrenger), Catalan constrènyer, French contraindre and Italian costringere.^{[9][4][10][11][1]}

The Latin verb is formed from con- (“with, together”) and stringō (“to draw tight, bind”).^[12][1] In Medieval Latin it was a legal word for compelling a debtor or an accused by coercion, the sense of the earliest Spanish texts.^[13][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the verb to the 10th century, and Segura Munguía agrees.^[6][14] The first record in the CDH is in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250): si por auentura, los parçoneros por aqueste guisado non le pudieren constrennir, in a passage on how the partners in a mill may force one of them to pay his debt.^[3] Charters and the Aragonese Vidal Mayor use it in the same way, of a creditor forcing a debtor to pay.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Besides compelling, Old Spanish used it in the physical sense “to bind, constrict the bowels”: the Moamín (1250) speaks of falcons that are costrinnen, “constipated”.^[15][3] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave both, “to force, compel” and “to press and close”, as in constreñir el vientre;^[5][16] Terreros glossed the latter with French constiper.^[5][16] Today the DLE adds “to oppress, limit”, of rules that hold back a person's freedom, and labels the physical sense medical.^[7][17]

Timeline

• 900s – first record, according to Corominas.^[6]
• 1218–c. 1250 – constrennir in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[3]
• 1250 – the Moamín uses it of constipation in birds.^[15][3]
• 1256–1263 – the Siete Partidas say a bishop may compel his clerics to take orders.^[18]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses Latin cogo and compello as costreñir.^[19]
• 1527 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes its irregular forms.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To compel, force someone to do something: La crisis lo constriñó a vender la casa.^[7][1]
2. (transitive) To oppress, restrict, limit.^[7][1]
3. (transitive; medicine) To press and close, as by squeezing; to constrict.^[7][17]

Word family

• constreñimiento

Related words

• estreñir
• constringir
• estrecho
• constricción
• Latin cōnstringō

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. constreñir
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1850
5. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. constreñir
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. estreñir
7. ^ a b c d e 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. constreñir
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. constreñir
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon
10. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
14. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 161
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)
16. ^ 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, 500
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe
18. ^ 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. 767
19. ^ 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
20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies