describir

Forms

describir (first-person singular present describo, first-person singular preterite describí, past participle descrito or (Argentina and Uruguay) descripto)^[1] The Diccionario de Autoridades notes that the older form was descrebir, and that the verb should be spelt with ⟨b⟩, not with the ⟨v⟩ many writers used.^[2] Fifteenth-century texts also have descrevir and discrivir, and descrebir is still recorded in Mexico in 1746.^[3][4] The past participle is descrito; in Argentina and Uruguay it is descripto.^[1][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēscrībō (“to copy; to draw, mark out; to describe”), a learned word that Corominas first finds at the beginning of the 15th century, in Santillana.^[5][6][7] The Latin verb is formed from dē- and scrībō (“to write”).^[8][9] In Latin it meant to copy or transcribe a text, to draw or trace a figure, and to set out or depict in words; manuscripts often confuse it with discrībō (“to distribute, assign”).^[8][10][11] Medieval Latin also used it for entering people on a census list and assessing them for tax.^[12][13]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese descrever, Catalan descriure, French décrire and Italian descrivere.^{[14][15][16][17]} The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *skreif-e/o- (“to carve”) and to Proto-Indo-European *skreybʰ- (“to carve, scratch”).^[18][1] The inherited outcome of the simple verb is escribir, which is recorded from 1100.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pero López de Ayala's translation of Livy, of about 1400 and in an early 15th-century copy, uses the verb in the Latin military sense “to enrol”: los cónsules ovieron la elección e descrivieron la hueste e las legiones “the consuls held the levy and enrolled the army and the legions”.^[3] A little later, about 1430, Santillana uses it for depicting in words: non descrive tal Lucano “Lucan does not describe such a thing”.^[3][5] The DEMel lists one earlier record of the form describe, in Alfonso X's General estoria (c. 1275).^[19]

Semantic evolution

Enrique de Villena's gloss on the Aeneid (1427–1428) already treats description as a figure of rhetoric: describing the world is cosmography, describing time chronography.^[3] Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 glosses Latin describo as “to trace or draw”.^[20] The Quijote uses the verb both for telling a story in detail and for portraying Dulcinea's beauty.^[21]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gave three senses: to delineate or draw something in its parts, to relate something in detail as if drawing it with words, and, as a term of the schools, to define something imperfectly by its parts and properties rather than by its essence.^[2] Gaspar y Roig added the mathematical sense of tracing a curve, said above all of the motion of the planets, which a Peruvian text of 1793 already shows.^[22][4] The Academy's 1899 edition was the first to give the etymology and to put description in words at the centre of the second sense.^[23] The current dictionary puts verbal description first and marks the logical sense and the sense “to draw, delineate” as obsolete.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – López de Ayala uses descrivieron for enrolling the legions.^[3]
• c. 1430 – Santillana's Infierno de los enamorados uses the verb for portraying in words, the first record Corominas gives.^[3][5]
• 1492 – Nebrija glosses Latin describo as “to trace or draw”.^[20]
• 1588 – the first record from the Americas, in the New Kingdom of Granada.^[4]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “to draw”, “to relate in detail” and the logical “to define imperfectly”.^[2]
• 1853 – Gaspar y Roig records the mathematical sense “to trace a curve”.^[22]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin describere.^[23]

Meanings

Verb

1. To describe: to represent or set out in words what someone or something is like: Me describió la casa de su infancia con todo detalle.^[6][24][1]
2. To trace a line or path by moving along it: El cometa describe una órbita muy alargada.^[6][24]
3. (obsolete) To define something imperfectly, by a general idea of its parts or properties rather than by its essential qualities.^[6][2]
4. (obsolete) To delineate, draw or paint something so as to give a full idea of it.^[6]

Word family

• indescriptible

Related words

• descripción
• descriptivo
• escribir
• Latin dēscrībō
• Portuguese descrever

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 143
3. ^ 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. describir
4. ^ a b c d 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. descrebir
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 711
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. describir
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. describir
8. ^ a b 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. 223
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. describir
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
13. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
14. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1137
15. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. descriure
16. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
17. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 717
18. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
19. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. describir
20. ^ a b 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. describir
21. ^ 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. s.v. describir
22. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 761
23. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 334
24. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. describir