contacto

Forms

contacto m (plural contactos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin contāctus (“touch, contact; contagion”), a noun from contingō (“to touch, reach”), which was formed from con- and tangō (“to touch”).^{[2][3][1][4][5]} Vox notes that Spanish took the general sense and not the Latin “contagion”.^[6] Corominas dates it to about 1520 and the early 17th century, and found it missing in Alfonso de Palencia's dictionary of 1490; the CDH and the DTME have it from 1437.^[2][7][8]

The Latin verb lives on by the popular route in tañer; tacto and contiguo were borrowed from the same family.^[2] De Vaan traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- (“to touch”), with a nasal present.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In El Tostado's Libro de las paradojas (1437, in a 15th-century copy) the word is used of the body: que fuesse maculado por algun contacto viril “that it should be stained by any male contact”.^[7] Around 1527 Alonso de Chaves uses it in his cosmography for the point where two parts of an instrument touch.^[7]

Semantic evolution

San Juan de la Cruz used it for the mystical touch between the soul and God.^[7] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as the touching of one thing with another, from con and tango.^[10] Autoridades added the geometrical point where two figures or lines touch.^[11]

In the 19th century it came to mean relations between people: Boyd-Bowman's records begin in Havana in 1829, and ponerse en contacto appears in Uruguay in 1866.^[12] The modern dictionaries add the electrical connection and its device, the ignition of a car, the person who acts as a link, photographic contact prints and the beginning of an eclipse.^[3][13][1] In medicine it also names a person exposed to an infection through contact.^[8]

Timeline

• 1437 – El Tostado's Libro de las paradojas.^[7][8]
• 1491 – the first text in the HSMS archive.^[14]
• c. 1520 – Corominas's first record, in Padilla.^[2]
• c. 1527 – Alonso de Chaves's cosmography.^[7]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it.^[10]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades adds the sense in geometry.^[11]
• 1829 – first record from the Americas, in Havana.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin contactus.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. contact, touch: the action and effect of two or more things touching.^[3][1]
2. (electricity) A connection between two parts of an electric circuit (circuito).^[3]
3. (electricity) A device for making such a connection; in a car, the ignition.^[3][1][13]
4. A person who acts as a link between others (enlace).^[3][13]
5. A relationship or dealings between people or bodies: Perdimos el contacto después de la mudanza.^[3]
6. (photography, usually in the plural) A contact print made from a negative.^[3]
7. (medicine) A person exposed to an infection through contact with its source.^[8]
8. (astronomy) The beginning of an eclipse.^[13]

Word family

• contactar

Related words

• acontecer
• tacto
• contiguo
• tañer
• tangente
• Latin contāctus

Usage notes

Common phrases are ponerse en contacto “to get in touch”, lente de contacto “contact lens” and llave de contacto “ignition key”.^[3][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 408
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. contacto
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. 505
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 543
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. contacto
14. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)