defender

Forms

defender (first-person singular present defiendo, first-person singular preterite defendí, past participle defendido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dēfendō (“to ward off, repel; to protect”), and Old Spanish defender has the same form from the 12th century on.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas calls it a very old semi-learned word, and Wiktionary likewise describes the Old Spanish verb as a semi-learned borrowing from Latin.^[2][1] He notes that ofender, taken from Latin later, lacks the diphthong that this verb shows in its present tense (⟨defiendo⟩).^[2] Autoridades already remarked on the ⟨i⟩ of ⟨defiendo⟩, ⟨defienda⟩ as an irregularity of the verb.^[5]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese defender, Catalan defendre, Occitan defendre, French défendre and Italian difendere.^[6][7] In Catalan the derived verb defensar replaced the simple verb almost everywhere from the earliest texts, and some Old Spanish writers also used defensar in its place.^[2][8]

dēfendō is formed from dē- and a simple verb *fendō (“to strike, thrust”) that survives only in compounds such as offendō.^[1][9] Its root is Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (“to strike, kill”), which is also the source of Ancient Greek φόνος (phónos, “murder”).^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to the Fuero de Avilés of 1155, and finds the verb frequent in Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre.^[2][3] The earliest hit in the CDH that is not known only from a later copy, in the Cortes de León of 1208, has the old sense “to forbid”: „defendemos firmementre, que ninguno … non ose echar” “we firmly forbid that anyone dare to cast …”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to ward off, repel an enemy” is very rare in Spanish, and its few Golden Age examples may be mere Latinisms.^[2][12] The medieval language used the verb both for “to guard, protect” and, very often, for “to forbid”, a sense it shares with French.^[2] Berceo has both.^[2][13] The participle defeso meant “forbidden”, and defendimiento “prohibition”.^[2][14] Alfonso X's prose adds the sense “to uphold an opinion”.^[15]

“To forbid” lived on in the Golden Age: in the Quijote women “defend” the door to someone, that is, bar his way, which Cejador holds is no Gallicism, since the sense runs through the old laws and gave the name dehesa, from defensa “defended, forbidden (land)”.^[16] Corominas sees dehesa as the popular doublet of the learned defensa.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 lists defending the accused in court, defending an opinion and “to forbid”.^[17] In 1846 Salvá noted that the sense “to forbid” was already antiquated in many uses, though the Academy still lists it.^[18][4]

Modern Spanish adds the reflexive colloquial sense “to manage, get by; to be reasonably well off”, and the use in football and other sports for marking an opponent.^[4][19] In Gran Canaria defender is to try to sell hard-to-sell produce at the best price.^[20]

Timeline

• 1155 – first record, in the Fuero de Avilés.^[2][3]
• 1208 – the Cortes de León use defendemos for “we forbid”.^[11]
• c. 1230–1260 – Berceo uses the verb for “to guard, protect” and “to forbid”.^[21][13]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it for upholding an opinion.^[15]
• 1527 – first records in the Americas, in Nicaragua and Santo Domingo, in the sense “to forbid”.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists the senses of defending the accused, defending an opinion and forbidding.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as preserving someone from danger and notes the i of defiendo.^[5]
• 1846 – Salvá marks “to forbid” as already antiquated in many uses.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Latin defendere.^[23]

Meanings

Verb

1. To protect, shelter or keep safe from harm or attack; also reflexive, to defend oneself: Los vecinos defendieron el puente toda la noche.^[4][24][1]
2. To uphold or maintain an idea or opinion against those of others: Siempre defendió sus ideas en las asambleas.^[4][19]
3. To forbid, prohibit; a sense now little used.^[4][18][1]
4. To hinder, obstruct.^[4]
5. (law) To plead for someone, speak in favour of someone, especially of the accused in court: La abogada defendió al acusado con habilidad.^[4][19]
6. (sports) To mark an opponent closely to hinder his play.^[19]
7. (reflexive, colloquial) To manage, get by; to be fairly well off: Con lo que gana se defiende.^[4][19][1]
8. (Gran Canaria) To try to sell produce that is hard to sell at the best possible price.^[20]

Word family

• defendible
• indefendible
• defendedor
• defendimiento
• autodefenderse

Related words

• defensa
• defensiva
• defensivo
• defensor
• ofender
• dehesa
• Latin dēfendō
• Portuguese defender

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 434
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. defender
4. ^ 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. defender
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 47
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. defendere
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1099
8. ^ 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. 3, 40
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. défendre
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. defendo
11. ^ 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. defender
12. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 2, 837
13. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 282
14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 150
15. ^ a b 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. defender
16. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 374
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. 639
18. ^ a b c Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 349
19. ^ a b c d e Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. defender
20. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. defender
21. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 166
22. ^ 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. defender
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 342
24. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. defender