hábito

Forms

hábito m (plural hábitos)^[1] Old Spanish usually wrote ábito, the spelling of Berceo, the Libro de Alexandre and Nebrija.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin habitus (“way of being, outward appearance; dress”), a learned word.^[3][4][1][5] This noun is formed from Latin habeō (“to have, hold”) + -tus.^[1][6] In Late Latin the noun came to mean a monk's dress and the monastic life.^[7][8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese hábito, Italian abito and French habit.^[9][10] De Vaan derives habeō from a stative verb of Proto-Italic meaning “has taken, so holds”, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰh₁b(ʰ)- (“to take”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's poems are the first to use it, always for clothing: in the Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236, in a late 13th-century copy) the boy's parents cambiáronli el hábito “changed his clothes” before sending him to school.^[2][3] The Milagros de Nuestra Señora speak of a monge de ábito reglar, a monk who wore the habit of a rule.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has three senses: the dress of the religious, an acquired custom, and the outward form of a figure in astrology;^[12] dar el hábito was to receive someone into an order.^[13] Nebrija gave both vestidura “garment” and costumbre “custom” for ábito.^[3][12]

In the Golden Age it named the insignia of a military order, as in Cervantes's La Gitanilla, and lay dress, as in the second part of the Guzmán de Alfarache.^[3] Until the 2001 edition the Academy put the sense “dress” first; the current dictionary leads with “habit, custom” and adds the medical senses of dependence on a drug and of tolerance to a medicine.^[14][15][4] In mineralogy it is the outward form of a crystal.^[5][1]

Timeline

• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos uses it for clothes.^[2]
• c. 1240–1272 – Herman the German's translation of the Psalter has it in a copy of the time.^[2]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Libro de las cruzes has the sense of a customary bearing.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses ábito as both “garment” and “custom”.^[12][3]
• 1513 – the first record from the Americas, a woman's habit in Puerto Rico.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy records ahorcar los hábitos and the proverb el hábito no hace al monje.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A habit: a way of behaving acquired by repetition, or arising from instinct: el hábito de leer antes de dormir.^[4][1]
2. The dress worn according to one's state or calling, especially the habit of monks and nuns.^[4][1]
3. A dress of a given colour that someone has vowed to wear out of devotion (devoción).^[4][17]
4. The insignia of a military order; the order itself.^[4][1]
5. (medicine) Dependence on certain drugs (drogas); the lessening effect of a medicine given continually.^[4]
6. (mineralogy) The outward form of a crystal.^[5][1]
7. (in the plural) The long dress of the clergy, a cassock (sotana) and cloak, once also worn by students.^[4]

Related words

• habitación
• habitar
• habituación
• habitual
• habitualmente
• habituar
• haber
• Latin habitus

Usage notes

Colgar or ahorcar los hábitos is to give up the clerical life or studies for another career.^[7][14] The proverb el hábito no hace al monje “the habit does not make the monk” is recorded in the Academy's dictionaries since 1817.^[14][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. hábito
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 294
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. hábito
5. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. hábito
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. hábito
7. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 312
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. habitus
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1755
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. habitus
11. ^ 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. habeō
12. ^ 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. hábito
13. ^ 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. hábito
14. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 458
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. hábito
16. ^ 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. hábito
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hábito
18. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 572