entre

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin inter (“between, among”).^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese entre, Galician entre, Asturian ente, Catalan entre, French entre and Romanian între.^[5][6][1] Old Portuguese also had antre and old Galician ontre.^[5][6] Leonese documents of the period have Old Leonese ontre and untre, among them a charter of 1185 written by a Portuguese notary.^[2] In the western dialects the preposition merged with the following article, as in entelos and entela, from which come Asturian entel and ente la.^[2]

The Latin word continues *n̥ter, from *h₁entér (“between”).^[1][7] Its cognates include Sanskrit अन्तर् (antár, “between, within”) and Old Irish eter (“between”).^[1][7] Gómez de Silva and Bénaben analyse it as the root of in (“in”) with a contrastive suffix -ter, the one found in alter (“other”).^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses entre as a preposition and also, in the old way, to join two subjects: „Entre Rachel e Vidas, aparte ixieron amos” “Rachel and Vidas both went aside together”.^[10][11] The Tentative Dictionary lists this use, entre … e before two subjects, as a copulative conjunction.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used entre for “in the middle of” and for “within”, and had the combination entre sí “to oneself”.^[11] The REW notes that entre … e joining two subjects or objects is found in nearly all the older Romance languages.^[6]

Autoridades (1726–1739) defined it as “in the middle of this and the other thing” and recorded the adverbial phrases entre año “at various times of the year” and entre día “during the day”.^[12] The 1884 edition listed the senses “inside”, “among the number of”, joint action (entre cuatro) and “according to the custom of” (entre sastres).^[13]

In the Americas entre más … más is used for “the more … the more”, a construction Cuervo studied and that a Chilean proverb shows.^[2] In Mexico entre más and entre menos are the usual forms in this construction.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses entre as a preposition and in entre … e.^[2][3][11]
• 1185 – a Leonese charter written by a Portuguese notary has the variants ontre and untre.^[2]
• 1211 – the earliest record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[15]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has a river „que corre entre dos montes” “that runs between two mountains”.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin inter with the accusative as its equivalent.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the proverb entre col y col, lechuga.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records entre año and entre día.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin inter.^[13]

Meanings

Preposition

1. between: in the middle of two or more things, places or moments: La farmacia está entre el banco y la panadería.^[4][1]
2. Within, inside; to oneself: entre sí.^[4][11]
3. In a state between two qualities: un color entre gris y verde.^[4][19]
4. among; as one of: Lo considero entre los mejores pintores de su época.^[4][1]
5. Jointly, by the effort of several: Entre los tres levantaron la mesa.^[4][19]
6. According to the custom of a group: entre médicos.^[4][13]
7. Expressing reciprocity: Los hermanos se ayudan entre ellos.^[4]
8. (mathematics) Divided by: veinte entre cuatro.^[1]

Word family

• entreguerra
• entretanto
• entrecortar
• entrecruzar
• entredicho

Related words

• interior
• interno
• íntimo
• intestino
• Latin inter

Usage notes

Old Aragonese texts from about 1300 have a separate preposition entro “until”, from Latin intro “inside”, which was common in Old Catalan and Old Occitan.^[2]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 645
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. entre
4. ^ 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. entre
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3507
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. inter
7. ^ 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, p. s.v. inter
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 264
9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. entre
10. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. entre
11. ^ a b c d e Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 223
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 515
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 437
14. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (2001), Diccionario breve de mexicanismos, México: Academia Mexicana / Fondo de Cultura Económica, p. 86
15. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. entre
16. ^ 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. entre
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 346
18. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 749
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. entre