incitar

Forms

incitar (first-person singular present incito, first-person singular preterite incité, past participle incitado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin incitō (“to set in rapid motion; to urge on, rouse”).^[2][3][1] Vox dates the borrowing to the 15th century.^[4] Corominas groups it with concitar and suscitar, parallel learned formations from the same Latin family.^[3]

The Latin verb is formed from in- and citō (“to set in motion”).^[5][1][6] The latter is a frequentative of cieō (“to move, stir up”), which it replaced in imperial times.^[7][8] Wiktionary traces this verb to Proto-Indo-European *keyh₂- (“to move”).^[1]

The same Latin verb was borrowed as Catalan incitar and French inciter, the French word from the end of the 14th century, beside an older enciter.^[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is a translation of Jacques de Vitry's abridged history of Jerusalem, dated after 1350: e a todas las fialdades & cruezas inçitando a los suyos “and urging his men on to every treachery and cruelty”.^[10] Juan Fernández de Heredia's translations of Orosius and Plutarch (1376–1396) use it often in the sense “to stir up, urge someone against or towards something”.^[10][11] Corominas dates the word to about 1440, and DICCA-XV finds it in Aragon in 1422.^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

Latin incitō first meant “to make move faster, spur on”, of horses or a river, and then “to rouse, stimulate” a person.^[5][13] Spanish took it with the second sense, “to move or urge someone to do something”, which all the dictionaries since Nebrija and Covarrubias give.^[14][15][2] Terreros still records incitar a un caballo for spurring a horse on, referring the reader to apretar.^[16] Covarrubias noted that incitador and incitamiento were not in use in his day.^[14] Alemany gave its constructions with a, contra and para.^[17] Barcia observed that the verb is mostly used in a bad sense, of urging to wrongdoing.^[18]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – used repeatedly in Juan Fernández de Heredia's translations.^[10][11]
• after 1350 – the CDH's first hit, in a translation of Jacques de Vitry dated only “after 1350”.^[10]
• 1422 – first record in DICCA-XV.^[12]
• c. 1440 – Corominas's date for the word;^[3] incitativo is recorded in 1438.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin incito, concito and excito as its equivalents.^[12][19]
• 1588 – first records from the Americas, in New Granada and Peru.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin incitare.^[14]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it with quotations from Ambrosio de Morales and Saavedra Fajardo.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To incite, urge or push someone strongly to do something: El cartel incitaba a los vecinos a votar.^[2][21][1]

Word family

• incitante
• incitativo
• incitador

Related words

• citar
• excitar
• concitar
• suscitar
• Latin incitō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. incitar
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. excitar
4. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. incitar
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 378
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. inciter
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. incitar
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. incitar
11. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. incitar
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. incitar
13. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1041
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 240
16. ^ 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, 335
17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 936
18. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 45
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (c. 1495), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca (facsimile, Madrid: Real Academia Española 1951), p. 129
20. ^ 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. incitar
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. incitar