gente

Forms

gente f (plural gentes)^[1] Old Spanish had yente, yent, hiente, iente and gient beside gente and gent.^[2][3][4] Asturian-Leonese of Babia has xente, Ribagorzan chen.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yente, inherited from Latin gēns (“clan, race; the people of a country”), the modern form being a relatinisation of the Old Spanish word.^[4][6][7] The inherited form prevails in the Cid and is found in Berceo, the Cronicón Villarense (about 1210) and the Libro de Alexandre.^[4] The Latinising ⟨gente⟩ is already in both manuscripts of a line of Berceo and becomes general in the 14th and 15th centuries.^[4] In archaic texts such as the Auto de los Reyes Magos the spelling ⟨gente⟩ may stand for the pronunciation of the old form.^[4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese gente, Asturian xente, Aragonese chen, Catalan gent, French gent and Italian gente.^[5][8] Basque borrowed it as jente.^[5]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *genti- and Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis, from the root *ǵenh₁- (“to beget”), and originally meant “clan, people of the same descent”.^[9][1] It is related to genus and gignō, and cognate with the English word kind and with Ancient Greek γένεσις (génesis, “birth”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has both yente and gente: „Grande duelo avién las yentes cristianas” “the Christian people were in great sorrow”.^[4][10] The sense there is “people, the folk of a land”, and in the plural; the Cortes de Benavente of 1202 have las gentes de la tierra “the people of the land”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the earliest period the plural las yentes predominates; at the end of the Middle Ages the singular gains ground, and the plural was left to church language (el apóstol de las gentes).^[4] In the 19th century Baralt called the plural in buenas gentes and gentes de letras a gallicism.^[11][4] In the Middle Ages and the Golden Age gente could still take a plural verb, a use that died out among educated speakers; it is found in the Americas in 1494: „esta gente platican poco” “these people talk little”.^[4][12]

Autoridades records the patrol's challenge ¿qué gente? for a single person, and the sense “nation”.^[13] The Academy added “troop of soldiers”, “each class of society” (gente del pueblo) and, colloquially, “family” and “the people working under someone”.^[14] As a predicate, ser gente “to be a decent person” or “a human being, not an animal” was general in the Golden Age (Quevedo) and is still alive in America, as in Colombia and Argentina.^[4][15]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – yente and gente in the Cid.^[4][10]
• c. 1180 – las gentes in the Auto de los Reyes Magos.^[10]
• 1202 – las gentes de la tierra in the Cortes de Benavente, the first record not known from a later copy.^[10]
• c. 1210 – yente in the Cronicón Villarense.^[4]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative gentío.^[6]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario has yent for “people”.^[16]
• 14th century – gente becomes the usual form.^[4][6]
• 1494 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[12]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin gens and Greek ethnos.^[17]
• 1855 – Baralt condemns the plural gentes as a gallicism.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the senses “troop” and “family”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. people: a number of persons (also in the plural with the same sense): Había mucha gente en la plaza.^[7][1]
2. The people under someone's command or in someone's service.^[7][14]
3. Each of the classes of society: gente humilde, gente adinerada.^[7]
4. (colloquial) One's family: ¿Qué tal tu gente?^[7]
5. (Latin America) A person, an individual.^[7][15]
6. (Latin America) A decent, well-behaved person: ser gente.^[7][15]
7. (vocative) Folks, guys: ¡Vamos, gente!^[1]
8. (obsolete) A nation, people; in the plural, among the Jews, the gentiles.^[7][13]

Word family

• gentío
• gentuza
• gentualla
• gentecilla

Related words

• gentil
• gentilicio
• gendarme
• Latin gens
• Portuguese gente

Usage notes

Gente is a feminine collective noun in the singular (la gente dice); the plural gentes survives in phrases such as derecho de gentes “law of nations” and don de gentes “a way with people”.^[1][4] Set phrases include gente bien “well-off people”.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. gente
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 236
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 144
5. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3077
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gente
7. ^ 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. gente
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. gens
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, p. s.v. gēns
10. ^ 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. gente
11. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 328
12. ^ 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. gente
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. gente
14. ^ 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. 529
15. ^ 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. gente
16. ^ 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. gente
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 359