crimen

Forms

crimen m (plural crímenes)^[1] In the 15th century Alfonso de Palencia, the Celestina and Hernando del Pulgar used the Latinising plural crímines.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin crīmen (“accusation; crime”), a learned word.^[2][4][5][1] In Latin it meant first a charge or accusation, and in the late period a fault or offence.^[2][4] Bénaben describes the change as the accusation being confused with the punishable act itself.^[6] The same Latin word gave Catalan crim, French crime and Italian crimine.^[7][8][1] The French word first appeared as Old French crimne, about 1165.^[8]

Wiktionary derives the Latin noun from Proto-Italic *kreimən and Proto-Indo-European *kréymn̥, formed from *krey- (“to sieve”) with the noun suffix *-mn̥, so that it is related to cernō (“to sift; to decide”) and to Ancient Greek κρῖμα (krîma, “judgement”).^[1] Gómez de Silva explains it in the same way, as a noun meaning “sifting, separation”.^[9] The OLD calls the analysis doubtful.^[10] The DHLF sees the original sense as “what serves to sort out, to decide”, then “judicial decision”, and then the charge on which that decision rests.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), in a law on theft: si … otras ueces non fuere tornado en este mismo crimen “if he has not been taken before in this same crime”.^[11] The BDELC dates the word 1220–1250, and the DCECH gives Berceo as its first record.^[4][2] In Berceo's Vida de San Millán (c. 1230) the plural means false charges: levantáronli crímenes “they raised false accusations against him”.^[11][12][13]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used crimen both for a grave offence and for an accusation, often a false one; the medieval dictionaries list “slander, false testimony” as a 13th-century sense.^[12][3] Alfonso X's laws name a sin “called in Latin crimen concussionis”, extortion under threat of a charge.^[14] Nebrija glossed it as “a great sin”.^[15][16]

Covarrubias in 1611 explained it as a grave sin, worse than a delito, and noted the jurists' distinction between crimen, a capital offence such as murder or adultery, and delictum, a private wrong such as theft; he also has crimen laesae maiestatis, an offence against God or the king.^[17] Autoridades called it “a purely Latin word” and defined it as a serious breach of a law, with the phrases crimen de lesa majestad and escribano del crimen, the clerk of the criminal courts.^[18][19] From 1843 the Academy defined it simply as a grave offence, and in 1884 it added the etymology “Del lat. crimen”.^[20][21]

Today the DLE adds a wrongful or reprehensible act and, specifically, the deliberate killing or serious wounding of a person.^[5] Moliner records the hyperbolic use for anything the speaker finds deplorable.^[22] In Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay the colloquial phrase para el crimen describes a very attractive person.^[23] In Puerto Rico, under English influence, it covers any illegal act, not only murder, and in New Mexico it also means a false accusation or an outrage.^[24][25] The word passed into krimen (Tagalog) and Ilocano.^[1]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes uses crimen for an offence of theft.^[11]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de San Millán uses the plural for false accusations (known from an 18th-century copy).^[11][13]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón speak of the crimen of which a woman is accused.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin crimen “a great sin” as its equivalent.^[15]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[26]
• 1611 – Covarrubias distinguishes crimen from delito.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades calls it a purely Latin word and records crimen de lesa majestad.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology for the first time.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A grave offence against the law; a crime: La policía todavía investiga el crimen del puerto.^[5][1]
2. A wrongful or reprehensible act;^[22] (hyperbolic) anything deplorable.^[5][22]
3. The deliberate killing or serious wounding of a person; a violent crime.^[5][1]
4. crimen de lesa majestad: an offence against the sovereign or the state; lese-majesty.^[5][18]
5. (Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, colloquial) para el crimen: extremely attractive, of a person.^[23]

Word family

• criminología

Related words

• criminal
• criminar
• criminoso
• incriminar
• recriminar
• delito
• Latin crīmen
• Catalan crim

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 2, 243
3. ^ 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. 814
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. crimen
5. ^ 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. crimen
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. crimen
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 1058
8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 201
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. crimen
12. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 153
13. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 267
14. ^ 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. crimen
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 320
16. ^ 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. crimen
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. 532
18. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 659
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 206
21. ^ 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. 306
22. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. crimen
23. ^ 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. crimen
24. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. crimen
25. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 57
26. ^ 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. crimen