enviar

Forms

enviar (first-person singular present envío, first-person singular preterite envié, past participle enviado)^[1] The usual medieval spelling was embiar or enbiar, from the Cid and Berceo to Nebrija;^[2][3] imbiar and inbiar also occur.^[4][2][3] Asturian and Argentine popular speech have inviar, and Asturian also unviar.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin inviāre (“to travel over (a road)”), formed from in- (“in, on”) and Latin via (“road, way”).^{[4][5][6][1][7]} Used transitively, the Late Latin verb came to mean “to send someone along a road”, and so “to send”.^[4][5][8] Du Cange records the Late Latin verb in the sense “to enter, tread” in Solinus.^[9]

The verb survives in all the western Romance languages: Portuguese enviar, Galician enviar, Catalan enviar, French envoyer and Italian inviare.^[4][10][1] Corominas rejects the claim of a German dissertation that it was native only in French and Castilian, since Occitan and Catalan have it from the 13th century.^[4]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *wijā and Proto-Indo-European *wih₁eh₂ (“pursuit”), related to Lithuanian vyti (“to pursue”).^[11][1] De Vaan rejects a link with Latin vehō (“to carry”) and English way.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Cid sends word to Hita and Guadalajara: envió a Fita e a Guadalfajara.^[12][4][5] The first record without a later copy is the participle embiados “envoys” in the acts of the Cortes of León of 1208.^[12] In Berceo enviar por already means “to send for”, and secondarily “to drive out”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that the etymological sense “set someone on his way” could still mean “to accompany someone part of the way” in the 15th century.^[4] Alfonso X's prose uses the verb for sending people and things, for banishing someone and for entrusting someone with a task.^[13] The Academy kept “to direct” and “to banish” as obsolete senses from 1817 to the present dictionary.^[14][6]

The Diccionario de Autoridades argued that, because the verb comes from via, it should be written with ⟨v⟩ rather than the ⟨b⟩ most writers used, and it added the sense “to give, present”.^[15] The 19th-century dictionaries list many phrases for dismissing someone: enviar a escardar, enviar noramala, enviar a freír espárragos.^[16][17][6] Mexican Spanish has enviar a la banca “to bench” a player.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[12][5]
• 1208 – embiados “envoys” in the acts of the Cortes of León.^[12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario: stones are sent far off to be sold.^[13]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria uses the verb for “to banish”.^[13]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary still spells it embiar.^[19][4]
• 1525 – first record from the Americas, at Santo Domingo (ynbialde).^[20]
• 1613 – first record of envión “shove”.^[4]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades recommends the spelling with ⟨v⟩.^[15]
• 19th century – envío “dispatch” enters the Academy's dictionary.^[4][5]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from en and vía.^[21][22] Alemany gives Latin inviare in 1917.^[21][22]

Meanings

Verb

1. To send someone somewhere, usually on an errand: La empresa envió a dos técnicos a la obra.^[6][1]
2. To send something, have it taken somewhere: Te envié el paquete por correo.^[6][1][23]
3. (obsolete) To direct, guide.^[6]
4. (obsolete) To banish, exile.^[6][13]

Word family

• enviado
• envío
• envión
• reenviar

Related words

• vía
• desviar
• viaje
• French envoyer

Usage notes

The verb is stressed on the i in the forms envío, envías, envía, like vaciar.^[1] Phrases: enviar a alguien a paseo or a pasear “to send someone packing”, enviar a alguien noramala “to dismiss someone angrily”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 203
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. enviar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 197
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vía
6. ^ 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. enviar
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 265
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. enviar
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. inviare
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3550
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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. enviar
13. ^ 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. enviar
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 372
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 529
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 306
17. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 149
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. enviar
19. ^ 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. enviar
20. ^ 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. enviar
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 407
22. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 680
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. enviar