entero

Forms

entero (feminine entera, masculine plural enteros, feminine plural enteras)^[1] Old Spanish also had the semi-learned entegro (1155, Fuero de Avilés), later altered to entrego (a charter of 1170, Berceo).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin integer (“untouched, intact, whole”), in the Vulgar Latin pronunciation intēgrum with the stress on the second syllable.^[2][4][5][1] Since Latin /ɡr/ between vowels normally gave /jr/, the stressed /e/ stood before a diphthong and could not become ⟨ie⟩ in Castile.^[2] The diphthong /ej/ was then reduced to /e/, as everywhere.^[2] The diphthong survives in Old Galician-Portuguese enteiro, whose modern form Portuguese inteiro was refashioned on the Latin.^[6]

The semi-learned Old Spanish entegro and entrego sat beside it in the Middle Ages, and the fully learned íntegro was taken from Latin in 1640.^[2][4] The same Latin word is Galician enteiro, Asturian enteru, Catalan enter, French entier, Italian intero and Romanian întreg.^[3][7][8] English entire and integer belong to the same family.^[1]

The Latin adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and the root of tangō (“to touch”), so its first meaning was “untouched”.^[9][10] De Vaan reconstructs *n̥tagros (“untouched”) and derives it from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- (“to touch”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and the DEMel date the first record to a charter of 1100, and the adverb enteramiente appears in the same year.^[2][11] The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1250) uses it for something complete and intact.^[12][2] In the prose of Alfonso X a man has his full form when he has all his limbs enteros e sanos “whole and healthy”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

From “whole, intact” the word passed to “healthy, robust” and to moral qualities.^[14][15] Covarrubias explains hombre entero as an upright man who cannot be bent by hatred, love or interest, and cites Horace's Integer vitae.^[15] Autoridades gives “whole, undivided”, “total” and “healthy, strong”.^[14] Corominas notes a sense “stiff, rigid” in the Guzmán de Alfarache.^[2]

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds an uncastrated animal, a virgin, the whole number of arithmetic and a dense, strong cloth.^[16] It also has a noun, “the act of completing a sum”.^[16] The botanical hoja entera “leaf with an uncut margin” appears in 1884.^[17] Today it also measures share prices on the stock exchange.^[5]

In the Americas the noun means a payment of money, especially at a public office (Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru), and in Chile also the balance of a sum.^[18][19] It is also a whole lottery ticket in much of Spanish America.^[20] In Peru and Guatemala the adjective could mean “identical”, as in enterita a su mamá “the image of her mother”.^[21][18] In Cuba and the Dominican Republic it describes an attractive person.^[20][5] The verb enterar, first “to restore, pay in full” and since Saint Teresa (1573) “to inform”, was formed from this adjective.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1100 – a charter in the Colección diplomática de Oña.^[2][11]
• 1155 – the semi-learned entegro in the Fuero de Avilés.^[2]
• 1170 – the altered entrego in a charter.^[2]
• 1223 – the date the BDELC gives for the first record.^[4]
• c. 1250 – the Libro de Apolonio uses entero for “complete, intact”.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin incolumis for entero in the sense of health.^[22]
• 1528 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains hombre entero as a just, unbending man.^[15]
• 1640 – the learned doublet íntegro in Saavedra Fajardo.^[2]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the arithmetic, animal and cloth senses.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from íntegro.^[17]
• 1917 – Alemany records the American senses “identical” and “payment of a sum”.^[24]

Meanings

Adjective

1. whole, complete, lacking nothing: Se comió la tarta entera.^[5][1]
2. Unbroken, not fragmented, intact.^[5][1]
3. Of an animal: not castrated.^[5]
4. Healthy, robust.^[5]
5. Upright, just.^[5]
6. Firm and steadfast; in control of one's emotions.^[5][19]
7. Of a woman: still a virgin.^[5]
8. (philately) Of postal stationery: bearing a printed value and a design.^[5]
9. (colloquial) Of cloth: dense, strong.^[5]
10. (Cuba, Dominican Republic) Of a person: attractive.^[5][20]

Noun

1. (mathematics) integer, whole number.^[5][1]
2. (finance) A point of a share price, one hundredth of the nominal value.^[5]
3. A point in the score of a game.^[5]
4. (Latin America) A payment of money, especially at a public office.^[19][18]
5. (Latin America) A whole lottery ticket.^[20]

Word family

• entereza
• enterizo
• enteramente

Related words

• enterar
• íntegro
• entregar
• integrar
• integridad
• Latin integer
• English entire

Usage notes

Por entero means “entirely”.^[5] Partir por entero is an old arithmetic phrase for dividing by a number of two or more figures, and colloquially means taking the whole of what should be shared.^[5]

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 i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 642
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3499
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. entero
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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. entero
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. inteiro
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. integer
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. enteru
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. integer
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. entero
12. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 222
13. ^ 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. entero
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 503
15. ^ 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. 747
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 367
17. ^ 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. 435
18. ^ a b c Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 395
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. entero
20. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. entero
21. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 274
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 346
23. ^ 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. entero
24. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 673