convento

Forms

convento m (plural conventos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote conuento, convento, conuiento and conviento, and occasionally conuent.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin conventus (“assembly, gathering”).^[4][5][6][1] García de Diego calls it a learned word, beside Old Spanish conviento “agreement; gathering”, found in Berceo and in Old Leonese.^[7][4]

The Latin noun is the action noun of conveniō (“to come together”), formed con- + veniō (“to come”).^[8][1][9] The verb “to come” goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- (“to come”).^[1] In Christian Latin the noun narrowed to “assembly of monks”.^[9][10] The sense “cloister” grew out of it.^[9][10]

The same Latin word is French couvent, in Old French first convent about 1120, Catalan convent, Portuguese convento, recorded in 1273, Asturian conventu and Italian convento.^{[10][11][12][13][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest Spanish record in the CDH is a charter of 1223 from the monastery of Oña, where the abbot and his monks speak as nos don Pero Perez por la gracia de Dios abbat de Onna, et nos conuiento des mismo logar “we, Don Pero Pérez, by the grace of God abbot of Oña, and we, the community of the same place”.^[14] Corominas's first record is Berceo (1220–1250), who uses conviento for a gathering of people and already for a community of monks.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the people: a gathering, and above all the community of a monastery.^[4][15] Berceo calls the apostles left behind by Christ a buen conviento complido “a good, full company”, and in Alfonso X's prose the conuento goes out with the abbot.^[14][15] The sense “house of religious” is recorded from the 14th century, in Juan Manuel.^[16] Nebrija about 1495 gave both, convento lugar and convento las mesmas personas.^[17][4]

Covarrubias in 1611 derived the word from Latin a conveniendo, because all its members come together to live in common.^[18] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as the house where many religious live together under their rule, and recorded conventos jurídicos, the courts of Roman Spain that Pliny describes.^[19] By 1843 the Academy marked “gathering of many people” as old.^[20] Gaspar y Roig's dictionary added the nautical sense, the space between two frames of a ship.^[21]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1551 in Puebla.^[22] Salvá noted in 1846 that in some American towns it meant the priest's house, a use later described for Ecuador.^[23][24][25] Spanish passed the word to Tagalog kumbento and Cebuano kombento.^[1]

Timeline

• 1223 – a charter of the monastery of Oña uses conuiento for its community of monks.^[14]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses conviento for a gathering and for a community of religious.^[4][5]
• 14th century – Juan Manuel uses convento for the house of a religious community.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes the place and the people.^[17]
• 1551 – first record in the Americas, at Puebla.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin a conveniendo.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records convento jurídico.^[19]
• 1843 – the Academy marks the sense “gathering” as old.^[20]
• 1846 – Salvá records the American sense “priest's house”.^[23]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. conventus, congregación”.^[26]

Meanings

Noun

1. A convent or monastery: the house where monks or nuns live under the rule of their order: El convento está al final de la calle.^[6][1][27]
2. The community of monks or nuns living in such a house.^[6][27]
3. (nautical) The space between two frames (cuadernas) of a ship.^[6][21]
4. (obsolete) A gathering of many people.^[6]
5. (Ecuador) The parish priest's house.^[24][25]
6. convento jurídico (history): each of the courts to which the towns of a Roman province brought their lawsuits, and the judicial district of such a court in Roman Hispania.^[6]

Word family

• conventual
• conventillo

Related words

• conventículo
• convenir
• convención
• venir
• Latin conventus
• French couvent

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. convento
3. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 142
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 770
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. venir
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. convento
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. conventus
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. convento
10. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. convent
12. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. convento
13. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. conventu
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. convento
15. ^ 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. convento
16. ^ a b 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. 781
17. ^ a b 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. convento
18. ^ 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. 509
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 577
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 194
21. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 639
22. ^ 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. convento
23. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 293
24. ^ a b Tobar, Carlos R. (1907), Consultas al Diccionario de la lengua, 2nd ed., Barcelona: Imprenta de la Revista Ibérica, p. 128
25. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 392
26. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 288
27. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. convento