deliberación

Forms

deliberación f (plural deliberaciones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēlīberātiō (“careful consideration, deliberation”), a learned word.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Corominas lists it among the derivatives of deliberar, which he dates to the second half of the 15th century and takes from Latin as well.^[6][2] By surface analysis it can also be read as the verb with the suffix -ción.^[1]

The Latin noun is formed from dēlīberō (“to weigh up, consider”) with the suffix -tiō.^[7][1] DICCA-XV and the Wikcionario derive the verb from lībra (“balance, pair of scales”), so that deliberating is, at bottom, weighing.^[4][8] The same Latin noun gave Portuguese deliberação, recorded from the 14th century,^[9] Catalan deliberació^[10] and French délibération.^[1]

Corominas warns that the learned deliberar must be kept apart from the popular Old Spanish delibrar (“to free, set free; to dispatch”), a derivative of librar, although a few early uses of the old verb come close to the sense “to resolve”.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest record of the word is the spelling deliberaçion in a text of Seneca's De ira dated 1284–1295, followed by deliberation in Navarrese political documents of 1301.^[11] The earliest CDH hit, a judgment of 1313 issued under the governor Juan de Paste, already has the sense “careful consideration with others before deciding”: auido sobre todo esto pleno conseio e deliberacion con muchos ombres bonos e sauios “having held full counsel and deliberation on all this with many good and wise men”.^[12] The CDH's 1356 document of Arellano repeats the same formula, conseyllo e deliberacion.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The CDH antedates by more than a century the first records that Corominas gives, a work of Valera and Alfonso de Palencia's dictionary of 1490.^[6][2][12] The early hits are mostly legal and chancery texts of Navarre and Aragon, and the chronicles of Juan Fernández de Heredia.^[12] In the 15th century Nebrija already uses deliberación to render several Latin nouns, among them deliberatio, consultatio and decretum.^[4]

The 1732 Diccionario de Autoridades gives three senses: reflection or premeditation before acting, a resolution or decision, and “emancipation”, a sense it says is no longer in use and takes from Nebrija.^[13] Terreros defines it as the examination of whether a thing is good or bad, feasible or not.^[14] The modern dictionaries keep the first sense, the act of deliberating, and the word now often names the discussions of a committee or a jury, frequently in the plural.^[3][15][16] The English cognate is deliberation.^[5]

Timeline

• 1284–1295 – deliberaçion in a text of Seneca's De ira, DEMel's earliest primary record.^[11]
• 1301 – the spelling deliberation in Navarrese political documents.^[11]
• 1313 – a judgment of the governor Juan de Paste, the first CDH hit.^[12]
• 1376–1391 – Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España uses it beside conssello.^[12]
• 1418 – DICCA-XV's first record in the Castilian of the Crown of Aragon.^[4]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's dictionary, the date Corominas gives.^[2][6]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary renders deliberatio and several other Latin nouns with it.^[4]
• 1539 – the first record from the Americas, in New Granada.^[17]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “reflection”, “resolution” and the obsolete “emancipation”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of deliberating (deliberar): careful consideration of the reasons for and against something before a decision is taken.^[3][15][8]
2. A discussion among several people to reach a decision, often in the plural: Tras dos días de deliberaciones, el jurado dio su veredicto.^[16][8]
3. (dated) A resolution or decision taken after reflection.^[13][18]

Related words

• deliberar
• deliberativo
• liberación
• Latin dēlīberātiō

Usage notes

The DLE also has a separate headword deliberación, without an etymology: a receipt given to a debtor on payment (a synonym of liberación), and, as an obsolete word, the act of setting someone free.^[3][19] The Wikcionario derives it from deliberar in the sense “to set free”, and Moliner marks it as an old word for liberación.^[8][15] Autoridades knew it as “emancipation”,^[13] and Baralt in 1855 called the use of deliberación for “safe delivery in childbirth” an archaism, quoting an old royal letter that thanks God por la deliberación de la dicha reina “for the delivery of the said queen”.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. deliberar
3. ^ a b c d 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. deliberación
4. ^ a b c d e 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. deliberación
5. ^ a b 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. 370
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 440
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. deliberación
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. deliberação
10. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. deliberació
11. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. deliberación
12. ^ 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. deliberación
13. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. deliberación
14. ^ 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, 603
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. deliberación
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. deliberación
17. ^ 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. deliberación
18. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 649
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. deliberación
20. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 224