durante

Etymology

It is from Spanish durar + -nte, the old present participle of the verb used as a preposition.^[2][3][4] Corominas records it first as an adjective meaning “lasting” (1382) and as a preposition from about 1440.^[5][6] Wiktionary instead derives it directly from Latin dūrantem, the present participle of the Latin verb.^[1]

durar itself is from Latin dūrō (“to last; to harden”),^[5] a verb formed from dūrus (“hard”).^[7] Barcia compares Catalan durant, French durant and Italian durante.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Many of the CDH's earliest hits are the personal name Durant or Durante.^[9] The first use as a preposition in the corpus is in the Castigos of 1293, preserved in the manuscript BNM 6559, where a knight is described as „peleando durante la batalla” “fighting during the battle”.^[9] The Aragonese form durant follows in 1296, in the Capitulación de Elche: „durant la dicha tregua” “during the said truce”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Cuervo explains the change: the participle was used in absolute clauses that copy the Latin ablative absolute, with the noun first and the participle agreeing with it (la dilación durante, los nueve días durantes); placed more and more before a singular noun, it became invariable and took on the character of a preposition, so that durante la guerra meant “while the war lasts, or lasted”.^[10]

The 1356 text of the Fuero viejo de Castilla already glosses the older demientra with „durante, mientras”.^[9] The participle could still agree with a plural noun: a 1724 document from Yucatán has „durantes todos los oficios”.^[11] Autoridades (1732) says the word was used only in the ablative absolute, for what is said or done while something lasts.^[12] The Academy's dictionary still called it a present participle in 1817, labelled it a preposition in 1843, and in 1869 and later again called it an indeclinable participle used like the adverb mientras.^[13][14][15] Cuervo notes that modern usage admits only the prepositional use.^[10]

Timeline

• 1293 – durante la batalla in the Castigos.^[9]
• 1296 – the Aragonese form durant in the Capitulación de Elche.^[9]
• 1382 – first record as an adjective, “lasting”.^[5][6]
• c. 1440 – first record as a preposition, according to Corominas, in Díaz de Gámez.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates durante toda la noche with Latin pernox.^[16]
• 1531 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[11]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it in English as “during”.^[17]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary first labels it a preposition.^[14]

Meanings

Preposition

1. during: at some point within a period of time, or at the same time as another event: Se quedó dormido durante la película.^[2][1]
2. for, throughout: for the whole of a stretch of time: Vivió en Lima durante seis años.^[1][18]

Related words

• duración
• duradero
• mediante
• Latin dūrō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. durante
3. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. durante
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. durante
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 536
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. durar
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 280
9. ^ 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. durante
10. ^ 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, p. 2, 1341
11. ^ 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. durante
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. durante
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 339
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 275
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 293
16. ^ 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. durante
17. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. s.v. durante
18. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. durante