feto

Forms

feto m (plural fetos)^[1] Autoridades and the Academy's 1884 dictionary give the Latin etymon in the spelling foetus.^[2][3] Terreros notes that physicians also used the Latin form fetus in Spanish, and it occurs in a medical text printed in Lima in 1792.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin fētus (“bringing forth, breeding; offspring”), recorded in Spanish from 1543.^[6][7][8][1] Corominas places the Latin noun in the same family as fēcundus (“fruitful”) and fēmina (“woman”), the sources of fecundo and hembra.^[6][7] The noun is derived from the participial adjective meaning “having recently given birth”, which later came to mean “fertile”.^[9][10] De Vaan reconstructs it as Proto-Italic *fēto-, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-to- (“having given birth”), and thinks it was probably formed within Italic.^[9] Wiktionary connects the root with *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suckle, nurse”).^[1]

The popular descendant of the Latin feminine fēta (“pregnant; having just given birth”) survives in Cantabria (Santander) as the adjective jeda, said of a cow that has just calved.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is Luis de Escobar, in 1543; the DTME dates the word, in its present sense, from 1541 without naming a text.^[6][7][11] Autoridades quotes a verse from Escobar's Preguntas about the nourishment of the unborn child: de lo que la madre come, / porque aquel feto lo tome “of what the mother eats, so that the fetus may take it”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defined the word as what a woman or a female animal conceives and carries in her womb, and the Academy's editions kept that wording, adding “viviparous” in 1869.^[2][12] In 1884 the definition became medical: the product of conception of viviparous animals while it is in the uterus, or when it is expelled before it is fully developed, and in humans the product of conception from the fourth month of pregnancy to birth.^[3] Today the DLE defines it as the embryo of placental mammals and marsupials from its implantation in the uterus to birth, and medical usage limits it to the period from the ninth week after conception.^[8][11]

In colloquial Spanish of Spain the word is an insult for a very ugly person.^[8][1][13] In Ecuadorian youth slang it names an insignificant, affected person, and in Bolivia a small child.^[14]

Timeline

• 1543 – first record in the DCECH, in Luis de Escobar.^[6][7]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines the word and derives it from Latin foetus.^[2]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros labels it a medical term and gives French, Latin and Italian equivalents.^[4]
• 1791 – the first record from the Americas, in a medical text from Lima.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives a medical definition and the etymology “Del lat. foetus”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (biology) A fetus: the embryo (embrión) of a placental mammal or a marsupial from its implantation in the uterus until birth.^[8][1]
2. (medicine) The product of conception from the ninth week after conception until birth: La ecografía mostró que el feto crecía bien.^[11]
3. An aborted animal, an abortón.^[8]
4. (colloquial, derogatory) A very ugly person.^[8][1]
5. (Ecuador, youth slang) An insignificant, affected and finicky person.^[14]
6. (Bolivia, youth slang) A small child.^[14]

Word family

• fetal

Related words

• fecundo
• hembra
• jeda
• Latin fētus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 741
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 493
4. ^ a b 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, 157
5. ^ 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. feto
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 877
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fecundo
8. ^ a b c d e f 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. feto
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. feto
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 358
13. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. feto
14. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. feto