emprender

Forms

emprender (first-person singular present emprendo, first-person singular preterite emprendí, past participle emprendido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *imprehendere (“to undertake”), formed with in- (“in, on”) from Latin prehendō (“to grasp, seize”).^[1][2][3] The DCECH calls it a formation common to all the western Romance languages, Old French included.^[4] The DLE gives only the two Latin parts, the preposition and the contracted form of the verb, and the Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 explained it as the preposition ⟨en⟩ joined to prender.^[5][6][7] Covarrubias and the Diccionario de Autoridades derived it from apprehendō, an explanation no later source follows.^[8][9]

The same verb is Portuguese empreender, Catalan emprendre, Occitan emprendre, Old French emprendre and Italian imprendere.^[10][1]

The Latin verb is a compound of prae- and Proto-Italic *hendō (“to hold”), which has no unprefixed descendants; it also had the contracted form prendō from Terence on.^[11][12][1] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *gʰed-, and de Vaan reconstructs a nasal present meaning “to grab”, comparing Ancient Greek χανδάνω (khandánō, “to hold”).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the reflexive enprenderse an con nuestros enemigos “they will take up with our enemies”.^[13][14] A letter of James II of Aragon (1300) has por emprender el logar e el dia de la vista, “to settle the place and day of the meeting”.^[13] The DCECH dated the verb to Santillana and other mid-15th-century authors, with perhaps an isolated example in Don Juan Manuel; the CDH has Juan Manuel's Libro enfenido (1334–1340).^[4][13]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias defined the verb as to resolve on a hard and difficult business, and took the noun empresa from it, meaning the enterprise and the device knights painted on their shields.^[8] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the same main sense, with examples from Mariana, and a second sense identical to prender “to catch fire”: in Fray Luis de León the flames se emprendía en una zarza “caught in a bush”.^[9] That sense, recorded in Lima in 1637, is now obsolete.^[15][5]

From 1817 the Academy recorded the colloquial emprender a alguno, later emprenderla con alguien, “to set upon someone, to pester or scold him”.^[16][6][5] Colloquially, emprenderla para a place means to set off resolutely towards it.^[17][18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – first record, the reflexive enprenderse in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[13][14]
• 1300 – a letter of James II of Aragon uses emprender.^[13]
• 1334–1340 – Don Juan Manuel uses enprender in the Libro enfenido.^[13][4]
• mid-15th century – Santillana and other authors, the DCECH's first records.^[4]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses emprender to explain Latin destinare.^[4]
• 1579 – first record from the Americas, in Bogotá.^[15]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “to take upon him”.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives empresa from it.^[8]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “to catch fire”.^[9]
• 1817 – the Academy records emprender a alguno “to set upon someone”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To undertake or begin a work, a business or a task, especially a difficult or risky one: Mi hermana emprendió un negocio de jardinería.^[5][1]
2. To set out on a journey or a road: Emprendimos la vuelta al anochecer.^[1][18]
3. (obsolete, also reflexive) To catch fire; to set fire to.^[5]
4. emprenderla (colloquial): to attack someone or something, with blows, shouts or criticism: La emprendió a patadas con la puerta.^[5][18]

Word family

• emprendedor
• emprendimiento
• reemprender
• empresa

Related words

• prender
• aprender
• sorprender
• Portuguese empreender

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 256
3. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. emprender
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 638
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. emprender
6. ^ 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. 418
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 387
8. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 727
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 417
10. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. empreender
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ 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
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. emprender
15. ^ 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. emprehender
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 350
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. emprender
18. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. emprender
19. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 126