cristo

Forms

cristo m (plural cristos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin Christus (“Christ”), which is from Ancient Greek Χριστός (Khrīstós, “the Anointed”).^[2][3][4][1] The Greek name is the noun use of an adjective meaning “anointed”, from χρίω (khríō, “to anoint”).^[2][3][5] It rendered Biblical Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (māšīaḥ, “anointed”), the title of the kings of Israel and of the awaited Messiah.^[6][1][5]

Early texts often keep the Latin form, as the Cid does, or abbreviate the name as ⟨xpo⟩ in Berceo.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 and Autoridades still spell it with ⟨ch⟩.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Latin form Christus appears in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), in Berceo, the Reyes de Oriente and the Fuero Juzgo.^[2][3] The CDH's first record in a Spanish text is in the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223): nuestro Senor ihesu xpisto los enbio con su mensaie “our Lord Jesus Christ sent them with his message”.^[9] The BDELC dates the Spanish form 1220–1250, and the DCECH cites it from Berceo's Signos.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias explains in 1611 that in the Old Testament kings, prophets and priests were anointed, and that the Son of God was called Christo because he was both king and priest.^[10] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds the image of Christ crucified, with the phrases ni por un cristo “not for anything” and poner como un cristo “to beat someone cruelly”.^[11] That of 1884 makes crucifijo a sense and records the proverb a mal cristo, mucha sangre, said of a poor work of art that relies on crude effects.^[12]

Colloquial Spanish uses the word for anybody: todo cristo is everybody and ni cristo nobody.^[4][13] Estar hecho un cristo is to be in a pitiful state, and armarse un cristo is for a row to break out.^[4][14] Donde Cristo dio las tres voces means a very remote place.^[13][15] In Chile andar sin cristo meant to be penniless, and in Bolivia cristo is money.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the Latin form Christus.^[2][3]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo has ihesu xpisto.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo writes the name abbreviated as xpo.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses Cristo o ungido with Latin christus.^[18][19]
• 1566 – first record in the Americas, in a letter from Puebla.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the name as “anointed”.^[10]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the image of Christ crucified.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology and the sense “crucifix”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Christianity; usually capitalised) Christ, the Son of God made man.^[4][1]
2. An image of Christ, especially on the cross; a crucifix: Sobre la cama colgaba un cristo de madera.^[4][1][13]
3. (colloquial) A row, a commotion, a mess: Al final de la cena se armó un cristo.^[4][1][14]
4. (colloquial) Anybody, in todo cristo “everybody” and ni cristo “nobody”.^[4][14]
5. (Bolivia) money.^[17]

Related words

• cristiano
• crisma
• Jesucristo
• Latin Christus

Usage notes

The name of Christ is written with a capital, Cristo, as Wiktionary and the 2001 Academy dictionary have it; the image and the colloquial senses are written in lower case.^[1][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 249
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cristo
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cristo
5. ^ a b Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. χριστός
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cristo
7. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 628
8. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 334
9. ^ 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. cristo
10. ^ 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. 533
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 254
12. ^ 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. 307
13. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cristo
14. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cristo
15. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 136
16. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 478
17. ^ 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. cristo
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 321
19. ^ 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. cristo
20. ^ 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. cristo
21. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cristo