conversar

Forms

conversar (first-person singular present converso, first-person singular preterite conversé, past participle conversado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin conversor (“to live with, keep company with”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][5] The DLE gives the active form as the etymon, and the REW reconstructs it with the sense “to associate”; from it come also Italian conversare, French converser and Portuguese conversar.^[6][7] The deponent is the middle form of a verb “to turn round”, formed con- (“with”) and versō (“to turn often”), the frequentative of vertō (“to turn”).^[8][9][10] Bénaben explains the sense: living in someone's company implies exchanging words, hence “to converse”.^[11]

Corominas and the BDELC treat it under verter, beside convertir and converso.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's astronomical prose (1254–1260) uses conuerssar for “to invert, reverse”: conuerssa la obra “reverse the operation”.^[12] The sense “to keep company” is in the Castigos del rey don Sancho IV (1292–1293, in a 15th-century copy): todas aquesas que contigo conuersan a menudo “all those women who keep company with you often”.^[13] The DEMel has conversan in the Libro del Tesoro at the end of the 13th century.^[14] Corominas and the BDELC date it only from Nebrija, 1495.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th and 15th centuries the verb meant “to talk with others”, as in Fernández de Heredia's Thucydides: Todos conversamos, chicos e grandes, liberalmente en la comunidad.^[15] Nebrija glossed it with Latin conviuo and conuersor, “to live together”, and Percyvall in 1591 with “to liue with, to conuerse”.^[5][16] Covarrubias defined it as dealing courteously with others, and explained the name by speakers turning back and forth with their replies.^[17] Autoridades gave “to talk”, “to have dealings and friendship” and, as little used, “to live, dwell”.^[18]

The military sense, “to wheel”, is in Gaspar y Roig in 1853 and in the Academy's dictionary by 1869.^[19][20] The DLE now marks “to live with” and “to associate with” as obsolete.^[6] In Ecuador and Chile the verb is transitive, “to tell, narrate”.^[21][6] In Argentina and Uruguay it means “to try to talk someone round”.^[22]

Timeline

• 1254–1260 – Alfonso X uses conuerssar for “to invert” in astronomical tables.^[12]
• 1292–1293 – the Castigos del rey don Sancho IV use it for keeping company, in a 15th-century copy.^[13]
• 14th century – Fernández de Heredia uses it for “to talk together”.^[15]
• 1438 – first record of conversación.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records conversar.^[2][3][5]
• 1518 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as courteous dealing with others.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives “to talk” first.^[18]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary adds the military sense.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin.^[24]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To talk, converse with one or more people: Conversamos un buen rato sobre el viaje.^[6][1]
2. (intransitive, military) To wheel, change the front of a line of soldiers.^[6][25]
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To live in the company of others.^[6][1]
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To have dealings and friendship with others.^[6]
5. (transitive, Ecuador) To narrate (narrar), tell.^[6][22]
6. (transitive, Argentina, Uruguay) To try to persuade someone.^[22]

Word family

• conversa
• conversable
• conversación
• conversador

Related words

• converso
• convertir
• verter
• Latin vertō

Usage notes

The verb takes con for the person and de or sobre for the subject.^[25][26]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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, 791
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verter
4. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. conversar
5. ^ a b c 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. conversar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. conversar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. conversare
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. conversar
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. conuersō
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. converso
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. conversar
12. ^ 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. conversar
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. conversar
14. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. conversar
15. ^ 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
16. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 97
17. ^ 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
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 578
19. ^ 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
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 208
21. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 297
22. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. conversar
23. ^ 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. conversar
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 289
25. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. conversar
26. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 450