construir

Forms

construir (first-person singular present construyo, first-person singular preterite construí, past participle construido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cōnstruō (“to heap up; to build”), formed from con- (“together”) and struō (“to pile up, arrange, build”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The Latin verb meant first “to pile up” and then “to build”.^[2][6] The DCECH notes that destruir is a learned word too, but was taken much earlier: Berceo already uses it, with a semi-popular preterite form.^[2]

The simple verb comes from Proto-Italic *strowō and Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to strew, spread out”).^[7][1] Its cognates include Old English strewian and English strew.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is a Toledo Becerro de visitaciones written after 1303, about a building that dizen por fama que se construyó teniéndolo Johán Estévanez “people say was built while Johán Estévanez held it”.^[8] The verb then appears in Juan Fernández de Heredia's translations (1379–1385), with the old preterite construxo: la primera ciudat que Eneas construxo “the first city that Aeneas built”.^[8] Corominas dates it from Nebrija (c. 1495), who glosses it with Latin construo.^[2][3][9]

Semantic evolution

The DCECH finds the word uncommon in the 16th century except as a term of grammar, fabricar being the usual verb for building.^[2] Quevedo still mocked it as a word of the culteranos.^[2] In grammar schools construir meant to construe a Latin text, translating it word for word; in the Quijote a character is construyéndole, construing a paper written in Arabic.^[10][11] Autoridades has both the sense “to make, erect, compose” of buildings, bridges and ships, and the grammar sense.^[11]

In 1846 Salvá recorded the sense of putting the parts of speech in their proper order, and the reflexive use for the construction a word takes: este verbo se construye con tal preposición.^[12] The Academy gave the etymology in 1884 and added the sense of ordering words by the rules of grammar.^[13] Moliner also records the use for immaterial things, as in building a theory.^[14] The earliest record from the Americas in Boyd-Bowman is from Buenos Aires in 1791.^[15]

Timeline

• after 1303 – the Becerro de visitaciones de casas y heredades has se construyó.^[8]
• 1379–1385 – Juan Fernández de Heredia's translations use construxo and construyendo.^[8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's dictionary, the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives the building sense and the grammar sense.^[11]
• 1791 – the first record from the Americas, in Buenos Aires.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the sense of ordering words grammatically.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To build a work of architecture or engineering, a monument or any public work: En el barrio construirán tres escuelas nuevas.^[4][1]
2. To make something by putting together the right elements; also of immaterial things: to construct a theory or a project.^[4][14]
3. (historical) In the old grammar schools, to arrange Latin or Greek words in Spanish order to make translation easier; to construe.^[4][11]
4. (grammar) To form a sentence, ordering the words by the rules of grammar; reflexive: to be used with a given word or form: Este verbo se construye con «de».^[4][14]

Word family

• construcción
• constructor
• constructivo

Related words

• destruir
• instruir
• obstruir
• estructura
• Latin cōnstruō

Usage notes

Construir is conjugated like huir, with ⟨y⟩ before endings not starting with ⟨i⟩: construyo, construyó.^[16][1] Wiktionary gives two pronunciations, /konsˈtɾwiɾ/ and /konstɾuˈiɾ/.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 179
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. construir
4. ^ 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. construir
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 191
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. construir
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 311
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 537
12. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 285
13. ^ 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. 281
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. construir
15. ^ 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. construir
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. construir