data

Forms

data f (plural datas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin data (“given”), the feminine past participle of dō (“to give”), understood with charta (“document”): the document “given”, that is, issued or granted.^[2][3][1] In Latin charters this word stood immediately before the place and the date of issue, and so it came to mean the date itself.^[2][3][4] Terreros explained it in the same way: at the end of documents one wrote datum or the feminine form with the place and day.^[5]

The same Latin word is Portuguese data, which Cunha takes from the Medieval Latin formula for a “given letter”, Catalan dada and Italian data; French date has the same origin.^[6][7][1] Spanish also has the learned dato, from the neuter of the participle.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the noun to 1601.^[3] Long before, 13th-century charters in Castilian and Navarrese closed with the formula Data en … “given at …” and the date, as in a document of 1243: Data en Estella III. dias por andar de julio “given at Estella, three days before the end of July”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defines the word as the note of the day on which a letter or deed is written and signed, and quotes Mariana: La data de esta carta fue a 30. de Diciembre.^[10] In accounts it named the items of discharge for what had been received, in the pair cargo y data; and in the phrase estar una cosa de mala data it meant quality or condition.^[10] The Academy's 1884 dictionary adds the opening in a water tank that lets out a fixed quantity of water, and marks the sense “written permission” as old.^[11]

In the Canary Islands data named the grants of conquered land that the Catholic Monarchs gave to their captains, and the land itself.^[12] The accounting phrase en data y descuento is recorded in Nicaragua in 1528.^[13] In Ecuador it is the turn to deal in a card game, in Cuba a round of dominoes, and in Puerto Rico a body of statistics.^[14] Vox marks data “date” as formal; it is a synonym of fecha.^[4]

Timeline

• 1243 – a charter has the closing formula Data en Estella.^[8]
• 1285 – the DEMel's first record of data in a Spanish text, in the diplomatic collection of Carmona.^[9]
• 1412 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[15]
• 1508 – Canarian deeds speak of the títulos y datas of land grants.^[12]
• 1528 – data y descuento in accounts from Nicaragua.^[13]
• 1601 – Corominas's date for the noun.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. data, dada”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The date and place written on a letter or document, at the beginning or the end: La carta lleva data de mayo.^[2][1][4]
2. The time when something happens.^[2]
3. An opening that diverts part of the water of a reservoir or a stream.^[2][16]
4. (commerce) The item or items of discharge in an account, the credit side.^[2][16]
5. (obsolete) A written permission.^[2][16]
6. (Ecuador) The turn to deal in a card game.^[14]
7. (Cuba) A round in a game of dominó.^[14]
8. (Puerto Rico) Statistical data.^[14]

Word family

• datar

Related words

• dar
• dato
• fecha

Usage notes

The DLE has a second data, from French datte (“date (fruit)”), used only in ciruela de data, a kind of plum;^[2][17] Wikcionario describes it as a very juicy dark plum also called ciruela de pernigón.^[2][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. data
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dar
4. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. data
5. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 591
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1084
7. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. dada
8. ^ 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. data
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. data
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 28
11. ^ 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. 337
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. data
13. ^ 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. dacta
14. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. data
15. ^ 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. data
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. data
17. ^ a b Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. data