doctor

Forms

doctor m (plural doctores, feminine doctora, feminine plural doctoras)^[1] Until the 17th century the word was usually pronounced without the /k/, and Nebrija writes dotor.^[2] Old Spanish texts have both doctor and dotor.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin doctor (“teacher, one who teaches”), a learned word.^[2][5][1] The DLE specifies doctor, noting that the classical word meant “teacher”.^[6] Vox dates the borrowing to the 13th century.^[7]

The noun is formed from Latin doceō (“to teach”) + -tor.^[8][1] De Vaan traces doceō to Proto-Italic *dok-eje- and Proto-Indo-European *doḱ-ei̯e/o- (“to make someone accept something”), the causative of the root of Latin decet (“it is fitting”).^[9][10]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese doutor, Galician doutor, Italian dottore and French docteur.^[1][11] The Latin word is also the source of a group of learned Spanish words from the same verb, among them docto, doctrina, dócil, documento and docente.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is the Libro de Alexandre, where the word means “teacher, master”; it then appears in Juan Ruiz, Don Juan Manuel and other authors of the 14th and 15th centuries.^[2] The Tentative Dictionary gives the sense “learned man” in the Libro de buen amor, with doctores philosophos, and in Don Juan Manuel's doctores de sancta eglesia.^[3] Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for a learned writer: segund departe un doctor delos frayres menores “as a doctor of the Friars Minor explains”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From “teacher” the word passed to a university degree: a law of 1462 names it as an academic title, though it was used that way earlier.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades held that the title of doctor was created about the middle of the 12th century to replace maestro, which had become too common to be prized.^[13] The Church also gives the title to saints whose writings defend or teach the faith.^[13][6]

The sense “physician” grew gradually: in the 14th century Spanish said doctor en medicina, but in the 15th century doctor alone could already mean a physician.^[14] Autoridades notes that the physician was popularly called doctor even without the degree, and that some said dotor to tell him apart from doctors of other faculties, a usage it calls a corruption.^[15] Today it is the usual way to address a physician.^[6][16]

In Spanish America the title spread further: Román complained that in Argentina and other republics it was given to lawyers, and in some to every priest, but not in Chile.^[17] In Panama doctor is slang for a drug dealer.^[18] In the Spanish of the United States, under English influence, it can mean any specialist or professional.^[19] The word passed into Tagalog as doktor.^[1]

Timeline

• 1230–1250 – first record, in the Libro de Alexandre, meaning “teacher”.^[2][4]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for a learned writer.^[12]
• 1330–1343 – the Libro de buen amor has the form dotor.^[3]
• 1462 – a law names doctor as a university title.^[2]
• 1546 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo, of a doctor who worked as physician and surgeon.^[20]
• 1614 – Jiménez Patón still notes the pronunciation without /k/.^[2]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the university, Church and popular “physician” senses.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. doctor”.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who holds a doctorate, the highest university degree: Es doctora en historia por Salamanca.^[6][1]
2. A title the Catholic Church gives to some saints for the value of their teaching.^[6]
3. A physician or other medical practitioner, often as a form of address.^[6][1]
4. (feminine, colloquial, rare) The wife of a doctor or of a physician.^[6]
5. (feminine, colloquial, obsolete) A woman who boasts of being learned.^[6]
6. (Panama, slang) A drug dealer.^[18]

Word family

• doctorar
• doctoral
• doctorado
• doctorando

Related words

• docto
• doctrina
• dócil
• documento
• docente
• Latin doctor
• Portuguese doutor

Usage notes

Doctor honoris causa is an honorary title a university grants to an eminent person, and doctor de la ley a learned interpreter of religious law among Jews and Muslims.^[16] In Spain the title is not normally used to address holders of the degree in everyday life.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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, 509
3. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 199
4. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. doctor
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. doctor
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. doctor
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. doctor
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. doctor
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. doceō
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. doutor
12. ^ 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. doctor
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 325
14. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. doctor
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. doctor
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. doctor
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. 171
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. doctor
19. ^ Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University, p. 54
20. ^ 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. doctor
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 397