contrato

Forms

contrato m (plural contratos)^[1] The older spelling contracto is the usual one in the 13th and 14th centuries, beside contrato; a Mexican document of 1527 has contrabto.^[2][3][4] Autoridades notes that some still wrote contracto but that common usage had dropped the ⟨c⟩ to make the word easier to say.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin contractus (“a drawing together; the undertaking of a transaction”), a noun formed from contrahō (“to draw together; to conclude a bargain”) with the suffix -tus.^[6][1][7] The Latin verb is made of con- (“with, together”) and trahō (“to draw, pull”).^[8][1] Corominas lists the word among the learned derivatives in his article on traer, as a doublet of the adjective contracto “contracted”.^[9][10] Bénaben places the sense “agreement, pact” in the legal Latin of the late period.^[7] The OLD's senses are “shrinking, narrowing” and “the undertaking of a transaction”.^[6]

The same Latin noun gave French contrat, Italian contratto, Catalan contracte and the English word contract.^[11] The popular outcome of the Latin participle is the adjective contrecho “crippled”, like Portuguese contreito and Catalan contret.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is the Vidal Mayor (c. 1250), which has the plural contractos in a chapter title on contracts that have no name.^[2] A charter of 1277 speaks of the church being cheated en algún contracto que faga “in any contract it may make”.^[2] Alfonso X's Partidas (1256–1265) also have the word.^[3] Corominas dates the form contrato itself from Nebrija, and the BDELC from 1490.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

From the beginning the word belonged to the language of law: Autoridades defines it as the final, complete and mutual agreement between two or more parties, made with the formalities the law requires for it.^[5] Terreros adds the sense “the written instrument of the agreement”, which the DLE now gives as a sense of its own.^[14][15] The Academy's 1843 edition lists the kinds of contract named in the law, such as purchase and sale, lease and emphyteusis.^[16] The 1869 edition adds unilateral, bilateral, consensual and aleatory contracts.^[17]

In the thieves' cant (germanía) recorded by Hidalgo in 1609, contrato meant the butcher's shop, a sense that Autoridades and the later dictionaries down to Alemany (1917) repeat.^[18][5][19] Recent dictionaries record new phrases such as contrato blindado, a contract that guarantees an executive a large payment if it is broken off.^[20][21]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – the Vidal Mayor has the plural contractos.^[2]
• 1256–1265 – Alfonso X's Partidas use the word.^[3]
• 1277 – a charter has the form contracto.^[2]
• 1490 – the BDELC's date for the form contrato.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin contractus and conventio as its equivalents.^[22][23]
• 1527 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City: contrabto de compañía “contract of partnership”.^[4]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “a contract”.^[24]
• 1609 – Hidalgo records the cant sense “butcher's shop”.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives the legal definition and notes the spelling contracto.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin etymon.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. A contract: an agreement, spoken or written, by which the parties bind themselves to something definite and can be made to carry it out: Han firmado un contrato de tres años con la empresa.^[15][1]
2. The document that sets out the terms of such an agreement: Guarda una copia del contrato en el cajón.^[15][21]
3. (cant, obsolete) A butcher's shop.^[18][5]

Word family

• contratar
• contratista
• contrata
• cuasicontrato

Related words

• contraer
• contrecho
• contractual
• Latin contractus
• English contract

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. contrato
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. contrato
4. ^ 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. contrabto
5. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 569
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. contrato
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. contrato
9. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 575
10. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. traer
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 167
12. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. contractus
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ 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, 511
15. ^ a b c 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. contrato
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 193
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 207
18. ^ a b c Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779)
19. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 447
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. contrato
21. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. contrato
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 318
23. ^ 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, p. s.v. contrato
24. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 97
25. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 287