excusar

Forms

excusar (first-person singular present excuso, first-person singular preterite excusé, past participle excusado)^[1] The spelling escusar was almost general until the end of the 17th century.^[2] The form excusar with ⟨x⟩ became frequent only after Autoridades adopted it in 1732.^[2][3]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin excūsō (“to excuse, free from blame”); the Old Spanish form escusar is recorded in a charter of 1076.^[2][4][5] Wiktionary calls the modern form a semi-learned alteration of the inherited Old Spanish form, remade on the Latin spelling.^[1] The Latin verb was formed from ex- and causa (“cause, reason; lawsuit”), like accūsō, which gave acusar.^[6][2]

Some medieval senses may owe something to escuso (“hidden”), the old past participle of esconder.^[2][1] The same Latin verb gave Portuguese escusar and Galician escusar.^[7][1] Nascentes takes the Portuguese verb for a learned form.^[7][8] French excuser was borrowed from Latin about 1120.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1076 in Oelschläger's list, spelt escusar.^[2][4] The early fueros use it for exempting a person or a beast from a duty: in the Fuero de Alcalá (c. 1235) the judge going to war may exempt three of the council's beasts (escuse III bestias).^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word had many senses in the Middle Ages, and was frequent from Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre on.^[2] The Alfonsine prose corpus already shows the main ones: “to excuse” (a wife escusándose for what she did), “to avoid, do without” (iron, which nobody can do without), “to refuse” and “to exempt” from a penalty.^[11] The sense “to avoid” has been frequent at all periods since the Libro de Alexandre (nunca escusa muerte omne por covardía, “no man ever avoids death by cowardice”), and Berceo also uses it for “to save”.^[2][10]

Cervantes uses it mostly for “to avoid” and “to be unnecessary” (es escusado).^[12] Autoridades gives “to excuse”, “to exempt from taxes” and “to prevent”, and insists that the word should be written with ⟨x⟩.^[3] The DLE now marks the sense “to exempt from a tax or a personal service” as out of use.^[5]

Timeline

• 1076 – first record, as escusar, in a charter.^[2][4]
• c. 1235 – the Fuero de Alcalá uses escuse for exempting beasts from service.^[10]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre (in a 15th-century copy) has the sense “to avoid”.^[2][10]
• first half of the 13th century – first record of the noun excusa, in Berceo.^[4][2]
• 1254 – the Castilian Fuero Juzgo has escusando se “excusing herself”.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Escusarse, Latin excusationem affero.^[13]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme: cosa escusada “a needless thing”.^[14]
• 1732 – Autoridades prescribes the spelling with ⟨x⟩.^[2][3]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin excusare.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To excuse: to give reasons to free someone from the blame laid on them, or, as excusarse, to apologise: Se excusó por llegar tarde a la reunión.^[5][16][1]
2. (transitive) To avoid or prevent something harmful from happening: excusar disgustos.^[5][16]
3. (transitive, also reflexive) To decline to do something.^[5]
4. (transitive) To be able to do without something, to need not do it: Excuso decirte que estás invitado.^[5][16]
5. (transitive, dated) To exempt someone from a tax or a personal service.^[5]

Word family

• excusa
• excusable
• excusado
• excusador
• excusación

Related words

• acusar
• recusar
• causa
• Latin excūsō
• Portuguese escusar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 1, 47
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 675
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acusar
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. excusar
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. excūsō
7. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1400
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. escusar
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. excuser
10. ^ 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. excusar
11. ^ a b 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. excusar
12. ^ 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. 513
13. ^ 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. excusar
14. ^ 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. escusar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 477
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. excusar