contrario

Forms

contrario (feminine contraria, masculine plural contrarios, feminine plural contrarias)^[1] Old Spanish also had contrallo, in Juan Manuel, Juan Ruiz, Sem Tob and the 15th-century songbooks, from a dissimilated form contralio.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin contrārius (“opposite; hostile”).^[2][4][5][1] The variant contrallo goes back to a dissimilated form of the Latin word.^[2]

The Latin word gave French contraire, Old Occitan contrari and Portuguese contrário.^[6]

contrārius is formed from Latin contrā (“against”) + -ārius.^[7][1] contrā continues Proto-Italic *komterād, a form of *komteros (“the other of two who meet”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo, who rhymes the word with santuario and vicario in the Vida de Santo Domingo and the Milagros.^[2] The Tentative Dictionary also starts with Berceo, in the sense “contrary, opposite, different”.^[8] The DEMel cites contrario from the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250).^[9]

Semantic evolution

The prose of Alfonso X already has the main senses: opposed (o por semeiante; o por el contrario “either by likeness or by the opposite”), harmful, and as a noun, an opponent; in astrology it describes two planets in opposite houses.^[10] In the Partidas el contrario is the opposite of what has been said.^[11]

Autoridades defines the adjective as opposed and repugnant to something, like white to black, and the noun as an enemy; the sense “hindrance” it calls rare.^[12] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 has the phrase llevar la contraria.^[13]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – contrario in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, the first record for Corominas.^[2][4]
• 1223 – the first text in the HSMS archive.^[14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has por el contrario.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin adversarius.^[15]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, as contrallo, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as “what is opposed”.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades has the noun “enemy”.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. opposite, completely different from something else or at the other extreme: opiniones contrarias.^[5][1]
2. opposed, against: Es contraria a la caza.^[5][1]
3. Harmful, damaging.^[5]

Noun

1. An enemy.^[5]
2. (law) The opposing party in a lawsuit or claim.^[5]
3. An opponent, rival in a fight or contest.^[5]
4. (masculine, rare) A hindrance, setback.^[5]

Word family

• contrariedad
• contrariar

Related words

• contra
• encontrar
• Latin contrārius

Usage notes

Al contrario means “the other way round, in the opposite way”, and de lo contrario “otherwise”.^[5] Other set phrases are por el contrario and llevar la contraria.^[1][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 182
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 131
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. contra
5. ^ 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. contrario
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. contrarius
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. contrārius
8. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. s.v. contrario
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. contrario
10. ^ 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. contrario
11. ^ 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. 777
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, s.v. contrario
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. 286
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. contrario
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 318
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. contrallo
17. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 508