esfera

Forms

esfera f (plural esferas)^[1] Medieval texts outside the works of Alfonso X usually have espera, the form of spoken Latin;^[2] Juan de Valdés objected to it and championed esfera.^[2] Alfonso's own prose has espera and spera.^[3] The Diccionario de Autoridades spelt the word esphera.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin sphaera (“ball, globe”), which is from Ancient Greek σφαῖρα (sphaîra, “ball, sphere”).^[2][5][6][1] Wiktionary takes it from the late form Late Latin sphēra.^[1] Latin had the spelling ⟨spaera⟩ from Cato on, and Corominas sees in it the spoken form behind Old Spanish espera.^[2][7]

The REW records popular forms of the Latin word such as Italian spera “celestial sphere, mirror, sunbeam” and Old Galician-Portuguese espera, the name of a coin.^[8] Old Catalan also had spera.^[2]

In Greek the word meant a ball, also the padding balls of a boxing glove, and a globe.^[9] Beekes finds no cognates outside Greek and calls the link with σπαίρω (spaírō, “to gasp, struggle”) hardly convincing.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit of the word is the Lapidario of Alfonso X, about 1250 in a manuscript of the same century, where a stone is flat on one side and round on the other, en figura de media espera “in the shape of half a sphere”.^[10][3] The DCECH dates it to Alfonso's works of 1256–76.^[2][5] In Alfonso's astronomical books it also names a model of the heavens, the instrument a que dizen la spera.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word was both geometric and astronomical: a round body, and the celestial sphere in which the stars appear to move.^[3] Covarrubias in 1611 gave the geometers' Latin definition and called all the celestial and elemental orbs espheras, as la esphera del fuego “the sphere of fire”.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades recorded the poetic sense “the sky” and the proverb Quien espera en la esfera, muere en la rueda, said of those who trust the world or fortune.^[4]

By 1817 the Academy also gave a figurative sense, the class or condition of a person, as in hombre de alta esfera “a man of high rank”.^[12] The edition of 1899 added the dial of a clock.^[13] Alemany's dictionary of 1917 had the wider sense “range of power, talent or relations”, which became the DLE's “field, sphere of a person or activity”.^[14][6] The plural altas esferas now names the highest levels of power.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – media espera “half sphere” in Alfonso X's Lapidario.^[10]
• 1254–1260 – the Alfonsine Cánones de Albateni name the armillary instrument spera.^[3]
• 1256–1276 – the DCECH's first record, in the works of Alfonso X.^[2]
• 1277 – Alfonso's astronomical books describe how to build the espera redonda.^[3]
• 1492 – Nebrija glosses Latin sphaera as an apple-shaped figure.^[15]
• 1533 – the first record from the Americas, in Venezuela, of a pilot's knowledge of the sphere.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the celestial and elemental espheras.^[11]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines esphera and records its proverb.^[4]
• 1817 – the Academy gives the figurative sense “class or condition of a person”.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense “dial of a clock”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geometry) A sphere: the curved surface whose points are all at the same distance from an interior point, the centro.^[6][1]
2. (geometry) The solid bounded by such a surface; a globe or ball.^[6][17]
3. The dial or face of a clock or watch, on which the hands turn.^[6][1]
4. The field or circle in which a person or an activity moves: Eso no entra en su esfera de trabajo.^[6][1][17]
5. (poetic) The sky surrounding the earth.^[6]

Word family

• esférico
• biosfera
• esfericidad
• esferoide

Related words

• atmósfera
• hemisferio
• Latin sphaera
• Ancient Greek σφαῖρα (sphaîra)

Usage notes

Set phrases include esfera armilar “armillary sphere”, esfera celeste “celestial sphere” and altas esferas “the higher spheres of power”.^[6][1] Compounds with the Greek word, such as atmósfera and hemisferio, were formed apart from esfera.^[18][19]

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, 723
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. esfera
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 602
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esfera
6. ^ 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. esfera
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sphaera
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8143
9. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. σφαῖρα
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. esfera
11. ^ 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. 779
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 383
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 420
14. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 705
15. ^ 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. esfera
16. ^ 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. esfera
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esfera
18. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 725
19. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 276