insistir

Forms

insistir (first-person singular present insisto, first-person singular preterite insistí, past participle insistido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin insisto (“to stand on; to press on, persist”), a learned word of the 15th century.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas treats it in the article existir, among the learned Spanish verbs taken from compounds of sisto (“to cause to stand”): asistir, consistir, desistir, persistir and subsistir.^[2][3]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese insistir, Catalan insistir, French insister and Italian insistere.^[5][6][7][8] The French verb is recorded from 1336.^[7]

The Latin verb is formed from in- (“on”) and the verb meaning “to cause to stand”.^[9][1][10] That verb is a reduplicated present, Proto-Indo-European *sti-sth₂- (“to make stand”), from the root *steh₂- (“to stand”) that also gave sto (“to stand”).^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is in Enrique de Villena's translation and glosses of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442), in the sense “to press on” along a road: más que a insistir en el virtuoso camino “rather than to press on along the virtuous road”.^[13] Corominas's first date is 1444, the Laberinto de Fortuna of Juan de Mena, where the poet says agora ya donde dubdavas insisto “now I press on where you were in doubt”.^[3][13]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 glosses Latin insisto as “to stand in a place” and “to hasten on one's way”, but his Spanish–Latin vocabulary has no entry for the Spanish verb.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives three senses: “to rest on another thing”, the Latin physical sense;^[15] “to urge, to ask for something persistently”, with the Comendador's gloss on Mena, no insisto en ello “I do not dwell on it”; and “to dwell on a matter, to speak of it at greater length or with more force”.^[15] The Academy's later editions kept the sense “to urge insistently, to persist or stand firm”, and Salvá added the physical sense again in 1846.^[16][17]

Today the insisting senses are the usual ones, and the DLE marks “to rest on something” as rare.^[4] The verb takes en (insistir en algo), and in some countries also con and sobre.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena's glosses on the Aeneid (in a copy of 1442), the earliest record in the CDH.^[13]
• 1444 – Juan de Mena's Laberinto de Fortuna, Corominas's first date.^[3][13]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary glosses Latin insisto, with no Spanish entry in his vocabulary of about 1495.^[14]
• 1581 – first record in the Americas, a letter from Lima: puedo insistir en suplicar “I may insist in begging”.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “to rest on”, “to urge persistently” and “to dwell on a matter”.^[15]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros gives French insister and Italian insistere as equivalents.^[21]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin insistere.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. To urge or ask again and again: Le insistí hasta que me dejó entrar.^[4][18]
2. To persist or hold firm in something: Siguió insistiendo en su inocencia.^[4][1]
3. To dwell on or stress something, to repeat it: La guía insistió en la necesidad de llevar agua.^[4][18]
4. (rare) Of a thing: to rest on another.^[4]

Word family

• insistente
• insistencia

Related words

• persistir
• asistir
• existir
• Latin insisto
• French insister

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 824
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. existir
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. insistir
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1905
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. insistir
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. insister
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 383
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. īnsistō
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 387
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. sisto
13. ^ 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. insistir
14. ^ a b 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. insistir
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 281
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 497
17. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 620
18. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. insistir
19. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 955
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. ensistir
21. ^ 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, 354
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 601