discordante

Forms

discordante m or f (masculine and feminine plural discordantes)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote descordante and descordant.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin discordāns (“disagreeing”), the present participle of discordō (“to be at variance, disagree”).^[4][5] Wiktionary analyses it instead as from Spanish discordar + -ante, and the Academy's dictionaries from 1817 to 1899 class it as the active participle of discordar.^[1][6][7] The Latin verb is derived from discors (“discordant”), from dis- (“apart”) and cor (“heart”).^[8][9][10] The Spanish verb was taken from the Latin one in the second half of the 13th century.^[10] The same word is Catalan discordant, French discordant and Italian discordante.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it to 1705, but it is much older.^[10][3] Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas (1254) contrasts los concordantes with los descordantes, those planets that differ in their ascents.^[2] Juan Fernández de Heredia uses discordantes of people at odds in his works of 1376–1396, writing that a lordship lasts while its men are of one mind and falls when they are diuerssos et discordantes.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The adjective has meant “at odds, in disagreement” in opinion or will since the 14th century;^[12] Cuervo shows it also of things that disagree in quality, with con and de.^[3][12] The musical sense “out of tune, dissonant” is in Domínguez's dictionary of 1846, together with geological estratificación discordante “unconformable stratification”.^[13] A 1716 text from Potosí describes bells en discordante armonía.^[14] The DLE defines it by discorde, “not in agreement; dissonant”, and records the phrase nota discordante.^[4][15]

Timeline

• 1254 – descordantes in Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas.^[2]
• 1376–1396 – discordantes in Juan Fernández de Heredia.^[3]
• 1416 – first record in the HSMS texts.^[16]
• 1705 – Corominas's date for the word.^[10]
• 1716 – first record in the Americas, at Potosí.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as the active participle of discordar.^[6]
• 1846 – Domínguez records the musical and geological senses.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. discordant, conflicting: in disagreement with others; of people, also as a noun: Hubo dos votos discordantes en el jurado.^{[4][15][1][17]}
2. (music) Out of harmony with the other sounds, dissonant (dissonant).^[15][17]

Word family

• discordancia
• discordantemente

Related words

• discordia
• discordar
• discorde
• concordante
• Latin discors

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. discordante
3. ^ 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. discordante
4. ^ a b c 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. discordante
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 328
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. discors
10. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. corazón
11. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto
12. ^ a b 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
13. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 628
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c 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. discorde
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial