depender

Forms

depender (first-person singular present dependo, first-person singular preterite dependí, past participle dependido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēpendeō (“to hang down from; depend on”).^[2][3][1] Corominas dates it from the early 15th century, in the Cancionero de Baena, but the CDH has it in the late 14th century in the Aragonese works of Juan Fernández de Heredia.^[2][4][5]

The Latin verb is formed from dē- and pendeō (“to hang”), from which Spanish also has pender.^[6][1][7] Wiktionary traces the simple verb to *(s)pend- (“to stretch, pull”), the root of pendō (“to weigh”) and pondus (“weight”).^[1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese depender (14th century), Catalan dependre, French dépendre, borrowed between 1154 and 1173, and Italian dipendere.^{[8][9][10][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is the Libro de los doce sabios (c. 1237, in a copy of the late 14th or early 15th century): más razón es que el grado dependa de la persona que la persona del grado “it is more right that rank should depend on the person than the person on the rank”.^[5][11] The first hit without a later copy is the participle dependientes in the Aragonese Vidal Mayor (c. 1250), of lands that belong to a house.^[5] Fernández de Heredia's Plutarch (1379–1384) writes that the safety of many nations dependia todo d'el “depended entirely on him”.^[5][12]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb was used in the figurative senses of the Latin word, “to be subordinate to” and “to be conditioned by”.^[5] The literal “to hang” occurs now and then, as in a text from New Granada of 1588 where jewels hang from noses and ears, and in Góngora's imitators; the DLE marks it as obsolete.^[13][14][3] Autoridades defined it as “to need some principle in order to exist” and recorded depender de alguno “to need someone's help or protection”, and the vulgar phrase no depende de eso “that is not the reason”.^[15] Today the colloquial reply depende or eso depende agrees only under conditions.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1237 – the Libro de los doce sabios (in a copy of about 1400).^[5]
• c. 1250 – the participle dependientes in the Vidal Mayor.^[5]
• 1379–1384 – Fernández de Heredia's translation of Plutarch.^[5][12]
• early 15th century – the Cancionero de Baena, Corominas's first record.^[2][4]
• c. 1580 – first record of dependiente, in Fray Luis de León and Fray Luis de Granada.^[2]
• 1588 – the first record from the Americas, in the literal sense “to hang”, in New Granada.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records depender de alguno.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin dependere.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To be subordinate to an authority or jurisdiction: Esta oficina depende del ayuntamiento.^[3][1]
2. (intransitive) To be caused or conditioned by someone or something; to depend on, hinge on: El precio depende del tamaño.^[3][1]
3. (intransitive) To be at the mercy of someone's will: Todo depende de lo que decida el jefe.^[3][1]
4. (intransitive) To live on someone's support or rely on a single resource: Todavía depende de sus padres.^[3][17]
5. (intransitive, grammar) Of a grammatical element: to be subordinate to another, as its complement.^[3]
6. (intransitive, obsolete) To hang from something.^[3]

Word family

• dependiente
• dependencia
• independiente

Related words

• pender

Usage notes

Depende or eso depende is a colloquial reply meaning that one agrees only if certain conditions are met.^[3] The DLE has a second, rarely used verb depender “to spend”, from Latin dēpendō (“to pay”), which Nebrija glossed in 1492 as “to pay a penalty”.^[3][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 476
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. depender
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pender
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. depender
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. dēpendeō
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. depender
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1118
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. dependre
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dépendre
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. depender
12. ^ a b c 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. depender
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. depender
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, 904
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 74
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 348
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. depender