convidar

Forms

convidar (first-person singular present convido, first-person singular preterite convidé, past participle convidado)^[1] Old Spanish and most writers up to the 18th century spelt it with ⟨b⟩ and ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩: conbidar, combidar.^[2][3] The Diccionario de Autoridades argued for the spelling convidar because it took the word to come from Latin invitare.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish conbidar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *convitāre (“to invite”).^[2][5][1] Corominas takes the Vulgar Latin verb as a variant of Latin invītō (“to invite, entertain”), probably reshaped under the influence of convīvium (“banquet”).^[2][5] The DLE starts the chain at convitare, the Medieval Latin form, and names the same two Latin words.^[6][7] García de Diego and Gómez de Silva also give the blend of the two.^[8][9]

The same verb is Catalan convidar, Occitan covidar, French convier and Italian convitare, and Corominas calls it common to all the western Romance languages.^[10][2] The REW traces the Portuguese and Spanish verbs to Catalan, but the Spanish verb is recorded from the Cid on.^[10][2] The inherited outcome of the Latin verb is instead envidar “to bid, raise a stake”, and the learned invitar was taken from Latin later.^[2][11]

De Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Italic verb meaning “to pursue”, from Proto-Indo-European *weyh₁- (“to pursue”), with the prefix in-;^[12][1] Wiktionary notes that its origin is uncertain.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and Boggs's Tentative Dictionary record the word first in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), where the people of Burgos would gladly offer the hero lodging but dare not.^[2][5][3] The earliest dated text in the CDH, La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), uses it of an invitation to a meal: the two disciples on the road to Emmaus convidaronle a comer “invited him to eat”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb meant inviting a guest to lodge, to a feast or wedding and to a meal, and the reflexive was already used for offering oneself.^[3] Alfonso X's prose also uses it for “to urge, encourage” and “to offer something”.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives “to offer” first, then inviting someone to a public ceremony and taking someone to eat with one.^[4] The 1817 Academy dictionary has the figurative “to move, incite”, which is still the second sense today.^[15][6]

invitar was rare in the classical period: the Academy marked it as obsolete in 1843, and it became more common than convidar later, perhaps under French influence.^[2] Convidar stays very general in Argentina and elsewhere in the Americas.^[2] In Mexico, Central America and the Andes it means above all offering food or drink to someone.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][5]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar uses it of inviting someone to a meal (in a 13th-century copy).^[13]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's prose has the senses “to urge” and “to offer”.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija spells it combidar and translates it Latin invito.^[17]
• 1543 – first record from the Americas, in Panama.^[18]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades prescribes the spelling with ⟨nv⟩.^[4]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary adds the reflexive “to volunteer”.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from convite; later editions give Low Latin convitare.^[20][21]

Meanings

Verb

1. To invite someone to come and eat with one, or to an event or anything offered as a treat: Nos convidaron a cenar el sábado.^[6][1]
2. To prompt, encourage or make one feel like doing something: El buen tiempo convida a pasear.^[6][22]
3. To offer something to someone, especially food or drink; in parts of Latin America, to treat someone to it.^[6][16][1]
4. (reflexive) To offer oneself for something of one's own accord.^[6]

Word family

• convidación
• convidado
• convidador
• desconvidar

Related words

• convite
• invitar
• envidar
• Latin invītō
• Catalan convidar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 461
3. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 127
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. invitar
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. convidar
7. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. convitare
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1868
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 193
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2200
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4535
12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. convidar
14. ^ 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. convidar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 239
16. ^ 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. convidar
17. ^ 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. convidar
18. ^ 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. convidar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 194
20. ^ 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
21. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. convidar
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. convidar