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emperador

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word emperador

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1107 a charter of Oña More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin imperator via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin parō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin parō
Spanish parar
English pare
Latin imperō
Latin imperātor
Spanish emperador
From the same root
Latin apparō ← parō
Latin parābilis ← parō
Latin parātus ← parō
Latin praeparō ← parō
Latin reparō ← parō
Latin sēparō ← parō
Spanish parada ← parō
Latin imperābiliter ← imperō
Latin imperātrīx ← imperō
Latin imperitō ← imperō
Latin imperium ← imperō
Latin imperātōrius ← imperātor

Pronunciation

  • /empeɾaˈdoɾ/, [ẽm.pe.ɾaˈð̞oɾ][1]

Forms

emperador m (plural emperadores, feminine emperatriz or emperadora, feminine plural emperatrices or emperadoras)[1] Old Spanish also writes enperador.[2][3] The feminine is emperatriz, from Latin imperātrix.[4][5] Berceo has emperadriz, and Alfonsine prose enperadriz.[4][6] Wiktionary also gives emperadora.[1][7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish emperador, inherited from Latin imperātor (“one who commands; general; emperor”), in a semi-learned form.[4][8][5][1] The REW explains why the word was not fully popular: the title and the word lived on in the Eastern Empire but were brought back in the West only by Charlemagne's coronation as emperor.[9] The feminine emperatriz continues imperātrix and is first recorded in a charter of 1129.[4][8][5]

The same word is Portuguese imperador, Catalan emperador, Occitan emperador, French empereur, Italian imperatore and Romanian împărat.[9] The Latin noun is formed from imperō (“to command”) with -tor, and the feminine with -trīx.[10][1] The verb is in- and parō (“to furnish, provide”).[10][11]

Alfonso X's history of Spain already explained the title in this way: the emperor is named from the Latin verb meaning “to command over others”, because he commands other kings.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is first recorded in a charter of 1107 from the monastery of Oña and then in the Cantar de mio Cid.[2][4][8] In Berceo it is the title of a king with other kings as his vassals, and is also used of God.[3]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 and the 1732 Autoridades explained that the title first meant a commander-in-chief, given by the army's acclaim or the Senate's decree to a general who had won a great victory, and later the head of the Roman Empire and princes with kings as vassals.[13][14] In 1817 the Academy extended it to the rulers of China and others.[15] Its 1884 edition gave the etymology and the examples of Alfonso VII and the emperors of Germany, Austria, Brazil and Russia.[16]

Alfonso X's Libro del ajedrez (1283) names a board game emperador after the emperor who invented it.[12][4] In Cuba emperador names the swordfish, recorded by Alemany in 1917, and also a fine cigar size; the DLE has the swordfish sense without a regional label, and the 2001 edition placed it in Almería, Granada, Jaén and Málaga.[17][18][5][19] In Bolivia it is a moustached monkey (mono bigotudo).[20]

Timeline

  • 1107 – a charter of Oña.[4][2]
  • 1129 – the feminine emperatriz in a charter.[4][8]
  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid.[4]
  • c. 1230–1260 – Berceo, with the feminine emperadriz.[3][4]
  • 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España explains the title from Latin imperare.[12]
  • 1283 – the Libro del ajedrez names a board game emperador.[12]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija: Emperador antiguamente, Latin dictator, augustus, and for emperatriz, augusta.[21]
  • 1539 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.[22]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias explains the Roman title.[13]
  • 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology imperator.[16]
  • 1917 – Alemany records the Cuban sense “swordfish”.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An emperor; feminine emperatriz, an empress: a sovereign who rules over other kings or great princes, or over a vast territory.[5][1]
  2. (history) The supreme head of the empire of ancient Rome (imperio), originally named by the acclaim of the army or a decree of the Senate.[5]
  3. The swordfish (pez espada).[5][1][7]
  4. (feminine emperatriz) The wife of an emperor.[5][23]

Word family

  • emperatriz

Usage notes

Emperatriz is the usual feminine, and emperadora is also recorded.[1][7] Pez emperador is another name of the swordfish.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. emperador
  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. 218
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 444
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. emperador
  6. ^ 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. emperatriz
  7. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. emperador
  8. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. imperar
  9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4305
  10. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b c d 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. emperador
  13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 725
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 410
  15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 349
  16. ^ 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. 417
  17. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 644
  18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 594
  19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. emperador
  20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. emperador
  21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 342
  22. ^ 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. emperador
  23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. emperatriz

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Emperador.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/emperador. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·