exacto

Forms

exacto (feminine exacta, masculine plural exactos, feminine plural exactas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exāctus (“weighed exactly, precise”), first recorded in Oudin's dictionary of 1607.^[2][3][4] The Latin adjective is the past participle of exigō (“to drive out; demand; weigh”), which Corominas also gives as the source of exigir.^[2][5] Vox and Bénaben explain the sense from that verb's meaning “to weigh”.^[6][7]

The Latin verb is formed from ex- and agō (“to drive”), which goes back to *h₂eǵ- (“to drive”).^[1][8]

The Latin adjective was also borrowed as Italian esatto, recorded from 1499, French exact, from before 1542, and Portuguese exato, from 1650.^[9][10][11] Catalan exacte is also a learned borrowing.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the French–Spanish dictionary of César Oudin, 1607.^[2][3] Corominas notes that the word was already common in 17th-century authors.^[2][3] Autoridades defines it as “punctual, careful, diligent” and quotes Saavedra Fajardo: Una exacta puntualidad y rigor, más es de ministro de Justicia que de Príncipe “an exact punctuality and rigour belongs more to a minister of justice than to a prince”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The Academy defined the adjective from 1817 to 2001 as “punctual, faithful and complete”.^[14][15][16] Domínguez in 1846–1847 already gave the senses “fitting precisely, neither more nor less”, “true, in keeping with the facts” and the phrase ciencias exactas for mathematics, which Gaspar y Roig also recorded.^[17][18] The DLE now sets out eleven senses, from “identical to a model” to the use as a reply meaning “exactly, that's right”.^[4] In Venezuela exacto is also a noun for a utility knife.^[1][19]

Timeline

• 1607 – Oudin's dictionary; the first record.^[2][3]
• 1682 – the first record from the Americas, in Buenos Aires.^[20]
• 1711 – the spelling exautas in a document from Nueva Vizcaya.^[20]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros gives “scrupulous, punctual”, with French exact and Italian esatto.^[21]
• 1817 – the Academy's definition “punctual, faithful and complete”.^[14]
• 1846–1847 – Domínguez records ciencias exactas.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin exactus.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Identical or very close to a model: Es exacto a su abuelo.^[4]
2. Of a thing: perfectly suited: Lo dejó en el sitio exacto.^[4]
3. Strict: la aplicación exacta del reglamento.^[4]
4. Strictly true or correct, accurate.^[4][1]
5. Of a word or text: literal.^[4]
6. Of a person: who speaks or acts with precision and rigour.^[4]
7. Of a measurable quantity: neither more nor less: Pesa tres kilos exactos.^[4][22]
8. (mathematics) Of an operation: with a result that has no decimal part: una raíz exacta.^[4]
9. Of a measuring instrument: giving a value as close as possible to the real one.^[4]

Adverb

1. Exactly; used as a reply to confirm what was said: —¿Era el martes? —Exacto.^[4][1]

Noun

1. (Venezuela, masculine) A utility knife, box cutter.^[1]

Word family

• exactitud
• exactamente
• inexacto

Related words

• exigir
• exacción
• Latin exigō

Usage notes

Corominas notes, after Navarro Tomás and Cuervo, that the word is usually pronounced esacto, even by educated speakers.^[2] In Mexico, by contrast, the reduction of ⟨x⟩ to /s/ is rare before a vowel, although exacto with a second /k/ is one of the words where it is heard.^[23] The phrase ciencias exactas names mathematics and the sciences based on it.^[4][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 824
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. exigir
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. exacto
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. exactus
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. exacto
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. exacto
8. ^ 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. agō
9. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. esatto
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. exact
11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. exato
12. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. exacte
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. exacto
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 401
15. ^ 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. 475
16. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. exacto
17. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 781
18. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 973
19. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. exacto
20. ^ 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. esalto
21. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 129
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. exacto
23. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 54