dirigir

Forms

dirigir (first-person singular present dirijo, first-person singular preterite dirigí, past participle dirigido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dīrigō (“to set in a line; to direct”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas dates it to the 15th century, after Cuervo; the CDH has it in Aragonese prose from 1385.^[2][3][5]

The Latin verb is formed dis- and regō (“to direct, guide, govern”).^[6][7][1] Bénaben notes that the prefix, usually privative, here only strengthens the simple verb.^[8] The older Latin form was dērigō: the OLD finds no certain ⟨dīr-⟩ in inscriptions before the 4th century AD, and de Vaan dates the change to that century.^[7][6] Wiktionary takes the simple verb back to Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to straighten”).^[1]

The popular outcomes of the Latin verb are few: Romanian drege “to mend, arrange” and Old Occitan derzer “to raise”, and Portuguese adergar, which Cunha derives from *ad dirigere with the ending changed to ⟨-icare⟩.^[9][10] The Latin participle dīrēctus gave directo, recorded in the Fuero de Avilés of 1155.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's oldest hit, in the Libro del cavallero Cifar (1300–1305), is known only from a late 15th-century copy, and the hits of 1320 and 1330–1343 are Latin quotations from the Psalms, such as dirige me in veritate tua.^[5] The first Spanish record without a later copy is in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España (1385): el dicho Sçipion dirigio su començamiento “the said Scipio directed his undertaking”.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1492 explains Latin dirigo as endereçar “to straighten, direct”.^[11] In 1732 the Diccionario de Autoridades gave four senses: to send something straight towards a place, to guide someone by showing the way, to direct intentions or actions to an end, and to govern, with a line of Góngora's Soledades about a prow steered to the opposite shore.^[12] The Academy's dictionary listed the guiding of a person's conscience in 1817 and the dedicating of a literary work by 1869, and added addressing a letter or parcel in 1899.^[13][14][15] The dedication sense is the first one recorded in the Americas, in Chile in 1575.^[16]

The pronominal dirigirse a “to make one's way to” and “to address (someone)” is now common, but the Chilean purist Román condemned it as a Gallicism that Autoridades did not record.^[17][1] The modern DLE adds conducting an orchestra or choir and directing a film or show; in the Dominican Republic the verb is used for managing a baseball team.^[4][18]

Timeline

• 1300–1305 – the Libro del cavallero Cifar (in a late 15th-century copy).^[5]
• 1385 – Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España.^[5][11]
• 1401 – the earliest dated text in the HSMS archive.^[19]
• 1492 – Nebrija glosses Latin dirigo as endereçar.^[11]
• 1575 – first record in the Americas, in Chile, for dedicating a work.^[16]
• 1604 – first record of director; dirección follows in 1607.^[3]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin dirigere.^[20]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense of addressing a letter or parcel.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To direct or steer something straight towards a place; also pronominal, to head for: El barco se dirigía al puerto.^[4][1]
2. To guide someone by showing the way.^[4]
3. To address a letter, parcel or other item.^[4]
4. To turn one's intentions and actions towards a given end.^[4]
5. To manage, run or govern a business, body or undertaking: Dirige una empresa de transportes.^[4][1]
6. To guide someone's conscience as a spiritual director.^[4]
7. To supervise and advise someone doing a piece of work, such as a thesis.^[4]
8. To dedicate a literary work.^[4]
9. To aim a remark or an act at someone; pronominal, to address someone: Se dirigió al público en inglés.^[4][1]
10. To conduct an orchestra or choir, or direct a film or a show.^[4][21]
11. (Dominican Republic, baseball) To manage a team.^[18]

Word family

• dirigente
• dirigible
• redirigir

Related words

• derecho
• directo
• regir
• Latin dīrigō

Usage notes

In Leonese, dirigir is also a metathesised form of digerir “to digest”.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 900
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dirigir
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. dirigir
5. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. dirigir
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. dīrigō
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. dirigir
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. dirigere
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 106
11. ^ a b c d 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. dirigir
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 293
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 328
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 283
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 361
16. ^ 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. deregir
17. ^ 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. 155
18. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. dirigir
19. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 390
21. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. dirigir
22. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. dirigir