examen

Forms

examen m (plural exámenes)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote esamen, as Nebrija does, beside examen.^[2][3][4] Autoridades notes that the word is Latin and that its ⟨x⟩ is pronounced /ks/;^[1] exâmen is an obsolete spelling.^[5][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exāmen (“tongue of a balance; weighing; examination”), a learned word.^[2][6][7][1] The Latin noun is formed from exigō (“to drive out; to weigh exactly”), which is ex- and agō (“to drive”), with the suffix -men, from an older *exagsmen.^[8][1][9] Bénaben explains its two lines of meaning by the two senses of the verb: “drive out” gave the swarm of bees that leaves the hive, and “weigh exactly” gave the tongue of the balance and the testing of things.^[10]

In its sense “swarm of bees” the same Latin word is inherited in enjambre, the popular doublet of the learned word.^[1][11][12] The swarm is also Portuguese enxame, Galician enxame, Asturian enxame, Catalan eixam, Occitan eissam, French essaim and Italian sciame.^[13][1][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit, Examen Lopez in the Repartimiento de Murcia (1257–1271), is a personal name.^[3] The first record of the word is in Pero López de Ayala's Rimado de Palacio (c. 1378–1406, in a mid-15th-century copy), where men seeking ordination who bring silver luego pasan examen sin ninguna barata “pass the examination at once, without any haggling”.^[3][15] Corominas gives the Corbacho (1438) as the first record, and Alonso de Palencia (1490) writes that Fortune is blind because she favours the bad as well as the good sin algund examen de merecimientos “without any weighing of merits”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Spanish took the word in its abstract senses, never in the Latin sense “swarm”, which only enjambre continues.^[12] The sense “test of fitness for a trade or profession” was established early: in 1557 a craftsman in Lima holds a carta de examen “certificate of examination”, and Cervantes's barber has had his carta de examen for over twenty years.^[16][17] Covarrubias (1611) defines it as a careful inquiry into the truth of something, adding that every science, art and craft has its examination to approve or reject those who practise it.^[18]

Autoridades has both the test of a person's capacity for a profession and the care taken to find out the truth of a matter, and the religious examen de la conciencia, the daily review of one's words, deeds and thoughts.^[5] In 1869 the Academy extended the test to school and university studies, and in 1884 it put first the general sense “inquiry into a fact”.^[19][20] Medicine uses it for the examination of an organ or of the whole body, and Moliner records libre examen, the Protestant principle of reading the Bible by one's own judgement.^[15][21] Several kinds of examination have names of their own in Latin America, such as the examen de reparación, a resit, in Nicaragua and Venezuela.^[22]

Timeline

• 1378–1406 – López de Ayala's Rimado de Palacio (in a mid-15th-century copy).^[3]
• 1405 – the variant esamen in Diego de Valencia (in a copy of about 1465).^[3]
• 1423 – the first record in DICCA-XV's 15th-century texts from the Crown of Aragon.^[4]
• 1438 – the Corbacho, Corominas's first record.^[2][6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary has esamen, Latin examinatio and examen.^[4]
• 1549 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima, of the examinations held before a magistrate.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes examinations in the sciences and crafts.^[18]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary lists examen de testigos, the judicial questioning of witnesses.^[23]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin exāmen.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. An examination or close study of the qualities and circumstances of a thing or a fact: Tras un examen atento de las cuentas, se descubrió el error.^[7][21]
2. An exam, test: a test of a person's fitness for a profession or office, or of their progress in their studies: Mañana tengo el examen de química.^[7][1]
3. (medicine) An examination of an organ, a part of the body or the whole body, usually for diagnosis.^[15]
4. examen de conciencia: an examination of conscience, a review of one's words, deeds and thoughts.^[7][21]
5. (law) examen de testigos: the questioning of witnesses who are not parties to the case.^[7]

Word family

• examinar
• examinando

Related words

• enjambre
• exigir
• Latin exāmen

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 821
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. examen
4. ^ a b c 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. examen
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. examen
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. examen
7. ^ a b c d e 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. examen
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 293
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. examen
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2491
12. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. examen
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
14. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 3, 238
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. examen
16. ^ 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. ensamen
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. s.v. examen
18. ^ 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. 819
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 345
20. ^ 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
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. examen
22. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. examen
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 401