impotencia

Forms

impotencia f (plural impotencias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin impotentia (“weakness, helplessness; lack of self-control”).^[2][1][3] The Latin noun was formed from impotēns (“powerless; unbridled”) with the suffix -ia.^[4][1] That adjective is in- (“not”) and potēns (“powerful”).^[5] Autoridades already called it a purely Latin word.^[6]

Corominas gives its first records as the Corbacho and Nebrija, beside impotente, also first in Nebrija, and the older learned potencia, recorded in Berceo; the popular word of the family is poder.^[7] The DTME traces the sexual sense to the Medieval Latin phrase impotentia coeundi, recorded in the 13th century.^[5] In canon law the Latin noun named a natural or accidental defect that made a person unfit for marriage.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives (1379–1384) uses it for weakness and helplessness, as in the reproach brought on the inpotençia of the Spartans.^[9] DICCA-XV dates its own first record to 1417, and Corominas and Segura Munguía to 1438.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

The general sense of a lack of power to do something came first.^[9][6] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the sense of being unable to beget or conceive as a second meaning, quoting Nebrija's chronicle on a king whose impotencia made people doubt the paternity of the queen's child.^[6] A Mexico City text of 1571 already speaks of the impotencia of a man unable to have intercourse.^[11] The DLE now separates the inability to have sexual intercourse from the inability to beget or conceive.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 1379–1384 – Fernández de Heredia's translation of Plutarch uses jnpotençia for helplessness.^[9]
• 1391 – an ordinance of John I for Zaragoza uses impotencia as a legal excuse.^[9]
• 1417 – DICCA-XV's first record.^[10]
• 1438 – the Corbacho, Corominas's first record.^[7][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin impotentia as its equivalent.^[10]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, in the sexual sense.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives its etymology, from Latin impotentia.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. powerlessness: lack of power or strength to do something: Sentía una gran impotencia ante la injusticia.^[2][1]
2. impotence: a man's inability to have sexual intercourse.^[2][5]
3. Inability to beget or conceive, sterility.^[2]

Related words

• impotente
• potencia
• poder

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. impotencia
3. ^ a b c 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. 599
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. impotentia
5. ^ 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. impotencia
6. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 230
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 588
8. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. impotentia
9. ^ 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. impotencia
10. ^ 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. impotencia
11. ^ 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. impotencia
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. impotencia
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 587