inicio

Forms

inicio m (plural inicios)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowed from Latin initium (“beginning”).^[2][3][1][4] The Latin noun is formed from ineō (“to go into, enter; to begin”) with the suffix -ium, and the verb from in (“into”) and eō (“to go”).^[1][5][4]

The same learned word is Italian inizio.^[6][7] Before the noun took root, Old Spanish writers used the Latin phrase ab initio (“from the beginning”), spelt ⟨ab iniçio⟩ or ⟨ab inicio⟩, inside Spanish verse and prose.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit, in a donation charter of 1277, is a place name, and most of its 15th-century hits are the Latin phrase ab iniçio in religious verse (Villasandino, Santillana, Juan del Encina).^[8] The first clear uses of the Spanish noun are of the 1470s: Lope García de Salazar writes en el inizio de la vatalla somos “we are at the beginning of the battle” (1471–1476, in a late-15th-century copy), and Jorge Manrique's Los fuegos (c. 1469–1479, in a copy of 1511) has ¡Qué inicio tan bien dado! “what a well-made beginning!”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed rare for centuries: Corominas and Segura Munguía date it to the 20th century, when it came into general use.^[2][6] The CDH has scattered earlier examples, such as Juan de Ortega's arithmetic of 1512, which speaks of a reader with a buen inicio “a good start”.^[8] Its records from the Americas in Boyd-Bowman's dictionary begin in Mexico in 1968, with the phrase de inicio “at first” in Cuba in 1974 and the plural los inicios in Puerto Rico in 1978.^[9]

Today it means simply “beginning”, a synonym of comienzo and principio.^[3][10] In computing it also names the home page or start screen of a program.^[1]

Timeline

• 1277 – a donation charter has Iniçio as a place name.^[8]
• 1379–1425 – Villasandino's poems use the Latin phrase ab iniçio in Spanish verse.^[8]
• 1471–1476 – Lope García de Salazar uses inizio as a Spanish noun.^[8]
• c. 1469–1479 – Jorge Manrique's Los fuegos, known from a copy of 1511, has inicio.^[8]
• 1491 – the first text with the form in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[11]
• 1512 – Juan de Ortega's arithmetic speaks of a buen inicio.^[8]
• 20th century – the noun becomes current, the date Corominas gives.^[2][6]
• 1968 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. beginning, start: Llegamos tarde y nos perdimos el inicio de la obra.^[3][10][1]
2. (computing) The home page or start screen of a program or website.^[1]

Related words

• iniciar
• inicial
• iniciativa
• Latin initium
• Italian inizio

Usage notes

Common phrases are al inicio “at the beginning” and página de inicio “home page”.^[1] In phonetics inicio silábico is the onset of a syllable, the consonant or consonants before its vowel.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. inicio
3. ^ a b c d 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. inicio
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. initium
6. ^ 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. 220
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 379
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. inicio
9. ^ 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. inicio
10. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. inicio
11. ^ 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. inicio