innoble

Forms

innoble m or f (masculine and feminine plural innobles)^[1] The oldest texts write the Latin-shaped ignoble;^[2] ynnoble and innoble appear at the end of the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ignōbilis (“unknown, obscure; low-born”), as Wiktionary, the Diccionario de Autoridades and the Academy's dictionary of 1884 say.^[1][3][4][5] The Latin adjective is formed in- (“not”) and nōbilis (“known, noble”).^[6][7] Wiktionary reports Leumann's view that it was first built on a noun *gnōbulum (“sign of recognition”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵnoh₃-dʰlo-, on the root *ǵneh₃- of nōscō (“to know”).^[1]

Corominas lists the word among the derivatives of noble, without a date, and the current DLE gives it no etymology.^[8][9] The early Spanish texts have the Latin form with ⟨gn⟩ in Heredia's translations of the late 14th century, and the spelling with ⟨nn⟩ appears in 1477–1485.^[2] The same Latin word gave French ignoble, a learned borrowing of the end of the 14th century, Italian ignobile and Portuguese ignóbil;^{[10][11][12][13]} Catalan has innoble.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Earliest recorded meaning

In Heredia's translation of Eutropius (1377–1399) a ruler defeated by Sapor, king of the Persians, is taken prisoner por ignoble seruitut “into base servitude”.^[2] A chronicle taken from Lucas of Tuy, in a copy of the late 14th century, already has the social sense: donzelas nobles e ignobles de linage “maidens noble and not noble by lineage”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Until the 19th century the word meant above all “not noble” by birth: the Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as one who lacks nobility, and Terreros gave llano and pechero, words for a commoner who paid taxes.^[3][14] The Academy kept only “not noble” from 1817 to 1899.^[15][16] In 1846 Domínguez added the figurative “base, vile, mean”, of actions and thoughts, and a colloquial use for an unpleasant or ugly face.^[17] The moral sense now leads: the DLE gives “vile, abject” as its second sense, and Moliner applies the word to acts done with cowardice, baseness or disloyalty.^[9][18] In the Americas lo innoble is recorded in Santo Domingo in 1820 and represalia innoble in Buenos Aires in 1832;^[19] Peru had metales ignobles “base metals” in 1788.^[19]

Timeline

• 1377–1399 – first record, as ignoble, in Heredia's translation of Eutropius.^[2]
• 1477–1485 – ynnoble in Fernando Mejía's Nobiliario vero.^[2]
• 1499 – innoble in Fernández de Santaella's Vocabulario eclesiástico.^[2]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as lacking nobility.^[3]
• 1788 – metales ignobles in Peru.^[19]
• 1846 – Domínguez records the figurative sense “base, vile”.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin ignobilis.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not noble; not of noble birth.^[9][1]
2. Vile, base, abject: Fue una venganza innoble.^[9][18]

Related words

• noble
• nobleza
• ennoblecer
• Latin ignōbilis
• French ignoble

Usage notes

The learned forms ignoble and ignóbil are still listed by Moliner among the synonyms.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. innoble
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 274
4. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 599
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. innoble
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. noble
9. ^ 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. innoble
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 845
12. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1843
13. ^ a b Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. innoble
14. ^ 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, 352
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 495
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 559
17. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 1001
18. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. innoble
19. ^ a b c 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. ignoble