demandar

Forms

demandar (first-person singular present demando, first-person singular preterite demandé, past participle demandado)^[1] Old Spanish texts also have the variant ademandar.^[2] The old preterite form demandudieres is recorded in medieval texts and listed by Salvá as an old form of the verb.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish demandar, inherited from Latin dēmandō (“to entrust, hand over”).^[5][6][7][1] The verb is formed from Latin dē- + mandō (“to entrust, commit”),^[8][9][1] and Wiktionary analyses the second part as manus (“hand”) with the root of dō (“to give, put”).^[1] Spanish has the simple verb as mandar.^[5][6]

The Latin verb meant “to entrust”;^[10] Medieval Latin used it also for “to order”, “to exact a tribute” and “to claim at law”,^[10] and in most Romance languages it came to mean “to ask”.^[11] The same verb is Portuguese demandar, Catalan demanar (“to ask”), French demander and Italian domandare.^[11][12] In Spanish the verb has specialised in the law, where it means “to sue”, while in French the same verb is the everyday word for asking.^[13] In 1611 Covarrubias noted that the Latin verb meant almost the opposite, “to entrust”, and took the Spanish prefix to reverse it: “to ask back what was handed over”.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), where Martín Antolínez goes through Burgos por Rachel e Vidas apriessa demandava “asking in haste for Rachel and Vidas”.^[15][6] In the poem it also means “to demand amends for an offence”, “to claim at law” and “to seek”.^[16] The first record in a text that is not a later copy is in the Cortes of León of 1208, about a toll that is demandado “claimed”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the verb for asking and begging, for begging alms (demandar por), for asking a father for his daughter's hand and for asking a question.^[3][17] The prose of Alfonso X adds “to desire” and “to attempt”.^[18] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives “to pray, ask”, the legal sense of bringing one's action before a judge, “to desire” and “to charge someone with something”.^[19] From 1817 the Academy labelled “to ask (a question)”, “to attempt” and “to charge with” as old,^[20] and the DLE now marks “to desire” as little used and “to attempt” as obsolete.^[7]

Today the legal sense is central,^[13] and Moliner calls the plain sense “to ask for” formal.^[21] In general use the verb often means to demand something as a right.^[22] The Tesoro lexicográfico de Puerto Rico takes the Puerto Rican sense “to require, insist on” for a shift of meaning under English demand.^[23]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the verb for asking, claiming and seeking.^[15][16]
• 1194 – the noun demanda appears in a charter.^[5][6]
• 1208 – the Cortes of León have the verb in a contemporary text.^[15]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for “to ask” and “to desire”.^[18]
• 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario renders demandar con importunidad “to ask insistently” with Latin flagito.^[24]
• 1529 – the first record from the Americas, in a legal formula from Nicaragua.^[25]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “to demand, to require, to aske, to beg”.^[26]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as asking, in court or outside it, or asking a question.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy marks the senses “to ask a question”, “to attempt” and “to charge with” as old.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin “demandare, confiar, encomendar”.^[27]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To ask for, request, beg: Los vecinos demandan más farolas en la plaza.^[7][22]
2. (transitive) To ask (a question).^[7][21]
3. (transitive) To hold someone to account for something.^[7]
4. (transitive, law) To sue, bring a claim against someone in court: La empresa demandó a su antiguo socio por estafa.^[7][1]
5. (transitive, rare) To desire, crave.^[7][21]
6. (transitive, obsolete) To attempt, try to obtain.^[7]

Word family

• demanda
• demandante
• demandado
• demandadero

Related words

• comandar
• encomendar
• mandar
• Latin dēmandō
• French demander

Usage notes

The legal verb is construed with ante for the court and por for the charge (demandar ante el juez, demandar por calumnia).^[21][28]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. demandar
3. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 168
4. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 353
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 800
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mandar
7. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. demandar
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 219
10. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2547
12. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. demandare
13. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. demandar
14. ^ 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. 644
15. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. demandar
16. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 209
17. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 284
18. ^ 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. demandar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 64
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 284
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. demandar
22. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. demandar
23. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. demandar
24. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 328
25. ^ 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. demandar
26. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 108
27. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 345
28. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 538