dictar

Forms

dictar (first-person singular present dicto, first-person singular preterite dicté, past participle dictado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dictō (“to say repeatedly; to dictate”), the frequentative of dīcō (“to say”), whose inherited outcome is decir.^[2][3][4][1] The first record is in Berceo, in the first half of the 13th century.^[2][3] The Latin verb is formed from that verb with the frequentative suffix -tō.^[5][1]

Through the Middle Ages and the Golden Age the word wavered between dictar and ditar;^[6] Nebrija still preferred the second form, and Autoridades called it a corruption.^[2][7] The Cancionero de Baena has deitar.^[6] For the medieval sense “to compose” Corominas refers to dechado.^[2]

The same Latin verb was borrowed as Portuguese ditar in the 14th century,^[8] Catalan dictar,^[9] Italian dettare and French dicter.^[10] The French borrowing, of the 15th century, replaced the inherited ditier “to compose, draft”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora the verb means “to compose” in verse or “to draft” in prose, the commonest medieval sense.^[2] The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1250) has dictar carta “to compose a letter”.^[12] In Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284) Saint Jerome dictates four letters at once to four scribes, the modern sense: dicto ell una uez quatro epistolas en uno.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to compose” must have been obsolete by Nebrija's time, since about 1495 he defined ditar only as saying what another writes down.^[2][14] In the Poema de Alfonso XI ditar lid cabdal means “to declare war”.^[2] The first record from the Americas, from Santo Domingo in 1548, has the figurative sense: el letor tome la que más le ditare su buen juicio “let the reader take whichever his good judgement suggests”.^[15]

Autoridades defined it as putting thoughts into words little by little so that another can write them down, and figuratively as inspiring or suggesting impulses of the mind, quoting Góngora's lo que amor le vá dictando “what love dictates to her”.^[7][16] The Academy added the issuing of laws, rulings and precepts in 1884,^[17] and the current dictionary has a fourth sense, to give a class or a lecture,^[4] which is chiefly American.^[18]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record, in Berceo, in the sense “to compose”.^[2][3]
• c. 1250 – the Libro de Apolonio has dictar carta.^[12]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for dictating to scribes.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the form ditar, “to say what another writes”.^[14]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, as ditar.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades calls ditar a corruption and records the figurative sense “to inspire”.^[7]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense of issuing laws and rulings.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dictate: to say something aloud, with suitable pauses, for someone else to write down: La maestra dictó un poema corto a los alumnos.^[4][1][19]
2. To issue or pronounce laws, rulings or precepts: El tribunal dictará sentencia el lunes.^[4][1]
3. To inspire or suggest: Actuó como le dictaba la conciencia.^[4][19]
4. To give or deliver a class or a lecture.^[4][1][18]

Word family

• dictado

Related words

• dechado
• dictador
• dictamen
• decir
• Latin dictō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 490
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dictar
4. ^ 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. dictar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. s.v. dictar
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 269
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1216
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. dictar
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 217
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dicter
12. ^ 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. 192
13. ^ 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. dictar
14. ^ 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. dictar
15. ^ 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. dictar
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 270
17. ^ 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. 383
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. dictar
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dictar