cualitativo

Forms

cualitativo (feminine cualitativa, masculine plural cualitativos, feminine plural cualitativas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin quālitātīvus (“qualitative”).^[2][3][4] Du Cange cites the Medieval Latin word, meaning “constituting the quality or nature of a thing”, from a letter of Gerbert.^[4] It is formed on quālis (“of what kind”), like quālitās (“quality”), the source of cualidad and calidad.^[3][5] The same word is French qualitatif and English qualitative.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC and Segura Munguía date it to the 15th century.^[5][3] The DEMel lists it in the vocabulary of the Cancionero de Baena, the 15th-century collection of poems.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Salvá's dictionary of 1846 defines it as “that which expresses quality”.^[7] The Academy entered it in 1869 only for the chemical analysis that finds the elements of a compound without measuring their amounts, and in 1884 added the general sense “that denotes quality” and the Latin etymology.^[8][9] The DLE now defines it as “of or relating to quality”.^[2] In the 20th century it is common beside cuantitativo in phrases such as cambio cualitativo “qualitative change”, recorded in Ecuador in 1980.^[10]

Timeline

• 15th century – first record, according to the BDELC.^[5][3]
• 1846 – Salvá defines it.^[7]
• 1869 – the Academy records it for chemical analysis.^[8]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the general sense and the Latin etymology.^[9]
• 1962 – first record from the Americas, in Chile.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. qualitative: of or relating to quality (cualidad): una mejora cualitativa.^[2][1][11]
2. (chemistry) Of an analysis: finding which substances or elements a sample contains, not their amounts (análisis cualitativo).^[12][8]

Related words

• cualidad
• calidad
• cuantitativo
• Latin qualitas
• English qualitative

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. cualitativo
3. ^ a b c d e 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. 642
4. ^ a b 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. qualitativus
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cual
6. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cualitativo
7. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 316
8. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 224
9. ^ 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. 311
10. ^ 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. cualitativo
11. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cualitativo
12. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. cualitativo