dentro

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin deintro (“from within”), formed of Latin dē (“from”) and intrō (“inside, within”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Corominas and Gómez de Silva describe it instead as a Spanish formation from entro (“inside”) with de, like delante, debajo and detrás.^[6][7] Since the same combination is found in other Romance languages, Corominas allows that it may already be Vulgar Latin.^[6][8][7] Du Cange records Medieval Latin deintro (“inside”) in the Pactus Legis Salicae, where another text has intra.^[9]

The same word is Portuguese dentro, Galician dentro, Asturian dientro, Aragonese dintro, Catalan dintre, Occitan dintre and Italian dentro.^[3][4][6] Judeo-Spanish has Ladino dientro.^[4]

The Latin adverb is formed from in (“in”) with a contrastive suffix.^[10] Wiktionary traces it through an older *interus to Proto-Indo-European *h₁énteros (“inner”).^[10][1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas gives a charter of 1074 as the first record.^[8][6] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) the people of a town shut their gates and „los de dentro non les querién tornar palabra”, “those inside would not answer them”.^[11] The Cid also uses it before a preposition: dentro en Burgos, dentro a Valencia, dentro de los corazones.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Berceo used dentro but more often the older entro, and in the Libro de Alexandre dentro could still mean “from inside”.^[6] Medieval texts preferred dentro en as a preposition (the Cid, Berceo, the Cancionero de Baena), and this was still used by Lope.^[6] Dentro directly before a noun (dentro la casa) is found only in some Golden Age prose and above all in verse.^[6][13] Cuervo noted that the adverbial use had come to prevail over the prepositional one.^[14]

The Diccionario de Autoridades already recorded the sense of time, “within a set period” (dentro del año).^[15] In 1884 the Academy noted that the word combines with de, por and hacia.^[16] In Chile popular speech made a noun of it, dentro “income”, and in Cuba la de dentro is a card in the game of monte.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 1074 – first record, in a charter.^[8][6]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has dentro and the derivative adentro.^[11][8]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses dentro en “within” of the signs of the zodiac.^[19]
• 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario glosses the adverb as Latin intus.^[20]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, in Santa Marta: dentro en su cámara.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls it an adverb of place (intus) and, before a noun, a preposition (intra).^[22]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from de and Latin intro.^[16]

Meanings

Adverb

1. inside, in the inner part of a real or imaginary space: Los niños juegan dentro.^[2][1]
2. indoors.^[1][23]
3. dentro de: inside, in: Las llaves están dentro del bolso.^[24][1]
4. dentro de with an expression of time: within, in: Vuelvo dentro de una hora.^[24][1]
5. por dentro: inwardly; on the inside.^[24]

Word family

• adentro
• adentrarse

Related words

• entrar
• Latin intrō
• Portuguese dentro
• Catalan dintre

Usage notes

After a the adverb is written as one word, adentro.^[25][23] In Puerto Rico and some other parts of the Americas dentro de is unstressed, while it is stressed in Spain.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. dentro
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. deintro
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2159
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. dentro
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 444
7. ^ a b c Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 220
8. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dentro
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. deintro
10. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. dentro
12. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. dentro
13. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 90
14. ^ 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, 896
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 72
16. ^ 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. 347
17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 540
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 560
19. ^ 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. dentro
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 329
21. ^ 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. dento
22. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 646
23. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. dentro
24. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dentro
25. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. dentro