cumpleaños

Forms

cumpleaños m (plural cumpleaños)^[1]

Etymology

It is a verb–object compound from Spanish cumple (“completes”) + años (“years”), literally “(the day one) completes years”, with the verb in the third person singular of the present.^[1][2] Gómez de Silva explains it through the sense of the verb “to reach a full number of years or months”.^[2] Corominas dates it to 1729 and notes that Autoridades treated it as a recent word.^[3][4]

The verb is a semi-learned continuation of Latin compleō (“to fill, complete”).^[4][3] Italian compleanno is taken from the Spanish word;^[1] Corominas dates it to 1865.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in Barrionuevo's Avisos (1654–1658), in a line of headings that mentions El cumpleaños de la Infanta “the Infanta's birthday”.^[5] In the second half of the 18th century the word is common: Cadalso speaks of the visits paid on a person's saint's day or cumpleaños, and Iriarte's fable sets a party at the court of the lion día de su cumpleaños.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named the yearly return of the day of one's birth, often of a king or prince, as in a 1785 account of the Guarani missions that lists the king's birthday and name day among the festivities.^[5] In the Americas it is first recorded in Lima in 1791, still written as two words, cumple años.^[6] The Academy defined it in 1817 as the day of each year that corresponds to the day of one's birth, and in 1899 as the anniversary of a person's birth, the wording the DLE still uses.^[7][8][9] Moliner and VOX add the party with which the day is celebrated.^[10][11]

In rural speech of the Dominican Republic and in Puerto Rico the word also names the anniversary of a death, on which three parts of the rosary are prayed.^[12][13][14]

Timeline

• 1654–1658 – the earliest hit in the CDH, in a heading of Barrionuevo's Avisos.^[5]
• 1729 – Corominas's date of first record, in Autoridades.^[3][4]
• 1774–1778 – Cadalso's Cartas marruecas pairs the saint's day and the cumpleaños.^[5]
• 1782 – Iriarte's Fábulas literarias use it for the lion's birthday.^[5]
• 1791 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[6]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as the yearly return of the day of one's birth.^[7]
• 1865 – Italian compleanno, taken from Spanish.^[4]
• 1899 – the Academy's definition becomes “anniversary of the birth of a person”.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. birthday: the anniversary of a person's birth: El sábado es el cumpleaños de mi hermana.^[9][1]
2. A birthday party: Nos invitaron a un cumpleaños.^[10][11]
3. (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, rural) The anniversary of a person's death, on which three parts of the rosary are prayed.^[12][13][14]

Related words

• cumplir
• año
• Italian compleanno

Usage notes

The word is masculine and has the same form in the plural: el cumpleaños, los cumpleaños.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. cumpleaños
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cumplir
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 290
5. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cumpleaños
6. ^ 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. cumpleaños
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 266
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 298
9. ^ a b 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. cumpleaños
10. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cumpleaños
11. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cumpleaños
12. ^ 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. cumpleaños
13. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. cumpleaños
14. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. cumpleaños