contento

Forms

contento (feminine contenta, masculine plural contentos, feminine plural contentas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin contentus (“contained; content, satisfied”), originally the past participle of contineō (“to hold together, contain”), which is formed from teneō (“to hold”).^[2][3][4] Corominas calls it a Latinism or semi-learned word in all the Romance languages, appearing late everywhere: French content in the 13th century, Occitan content and Catalan content at the end of the 14th.^[2] He rejects Meyer-Lübke's view that the Castilian word came from Catalan.^[2] Raymond Llull tried a popular rendering of the Latin word, contengut, which found few followers.^[2][5]

Corominas explains Portuguese contente, also found in the Judeo-Spanish of Morocco, by the Latin adverb contentē.^[2] Houaiss instead takes it from French, noting that 14th-century Portuguese also had contento.^[6]

As a noun meaning “contentment”, the word is, for Corominas, a separate formation from Spanish contentar, first in Saint Teresa.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar, cited through Dámaso Alonso, followed by the chronicle of Peter the Cruel by Pero López de Ayala, about 1375.^[2][3] Cuervo's 13th-century examples from the Crónica General come only from 16th-century editions;^[2] Menéndez Pidal's edition has tóvose por complido “he considered himself satisfied” in one of those passages.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word went with ser (ser contento), and this was still literary in the Golden Age (Juan de Valdés, Cervantes); Saint Teresa, Fray Luis de León and Lope already use estar contento, and ser contento survives in popular speech in Chile and elsewhere.^[2] Covarrubias explains the word as one who keeps within himself and seeks nothing else, as nuns in an endowed convent stay within their enclosure.^[7]

Autoridades gives the noun “joy, delight”, with quotations from Saint Teresa and Quevedo, and a legal sense “receipt”.^[8] The old sense “restrained, moderate” is marked obsolete from 1817.^[9][4] Moliner and Vox add a colloquial “tipsy”.^[10][11] In Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico it means “reconciled, on good terms again”.^[12][13]

Timeline

• c. 1295 – the Gran Conquista de Ultramar has the word, according to the DCECH.^[2]
• c. 1375 – Pero López de Ayala's chronicle of Peter the Cruel.^[2][3]
• 1376 – several texts of that year in the HSMS archive use it.^[14]
• 1431–1450 – descontento is first recorded, in Díaz de Gámez, and contentar follows in 1438.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin contentus.^[15]
• 1522 – first record in the Americas, in Cuba.^[16]
• second half of the 16th century – the noun contento “contentment” is first recorded.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the word as one who keeps within himself.^[7]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from the participle of continere.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. happy, glad; satisfied, pleased: Mi abuela está contenta con el regalo.^[4][1]
2. Satisfied with what one has, wanting nothing more: Vive contento con su pequeño huerto.^[10][18]
3. (colloquial) Slightly drunk, tipsy.^[10][11]
4. (obsolete) Restrained, moderate.^[4]
5. (Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) reconciled, back on good terms.^[12][19]

Noun

1. Joy, satisfaction, contentment.^[4][1]

Word family

• contentar
• descontento
• descontentar
• contentura
• malcontento
• contentamiento

Related words

• contener
• contenido
• Latin contentus
• French content

Usage notes

Set phrases are no caber de contento “to be beside oneself with joy” and a contento “to one's satisfaction”.^[4] The feminine noun contenta has its own senses, among them a gift that satisfies someone and an old military certificate of good conduct.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 181
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. contento
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. contento
5. ^ 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, 888
6. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. contente
7. ^ 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. 507
8. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 552
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 234
10. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. contento
11. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. contento
12. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. contento, ta
13. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 255
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, p. s.v. contento
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 317
16. ^ 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. contento
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 283
18. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 2, 463
19. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. contento, ta