insomnio

Forms

insomnio m (plural insomnios)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin insomnium, a learned word.^[2][1][3][4] Corominas lists it, beside insomne, among the learned words of the family of sueño.^[4] Wiktionary calls its source Vulgar Latin, and the Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 and the DTME give the plural form insomnia.^[1][5][6][7]

In Latin the word had two meanings.^[8] As “wakefulness, sleeplessness” it is formed with the negative in- from somnus (“sleep”); as “dream” it was read as the prefix meaning “in” plus somnium (“dream”), on the model of Ancient Greek ἐνύπνιον (enúpnion).^[8][4] Gómez de Silva derives it from insomnis (“sleepless”).^[9] The Latin word for sleep goes back to Proto-Indo-European *swépnos, and is related to ὕπνος (húpnos).^[10][1]

The doublet is ensueño “dream”, first recorded in 1580.^[1][11] The REW lists it among the inherited outcomes of the Latin word, but Corominas thinks it is a humanist creation of the 16th century modelled on the Latin, as it is recorded too late to be inherited.^[12][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in Diego Álvarez Chanca's treatise on epidemic pleurisy (1506): if the matter goes to the brain and the patient has insomnio y dolor de cabeza “sleeplessness and headache”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the word could also mean “dream, vision”, the second Latin sense: in 1578 Cristóbal de Acosta says datura brings deep sleep with varias representaciones de insomnios, and García de Silva y Figueroa writes of terribles insomnios that frightened a sleeper.^[13] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 defined it only as wakefulness, sleeplessness.^[14] Domínguez in 1846 added the medical view of it as a disorder in its own right or a symptom of another illness.^[15] The first record from the Americas is from Lima in 1775.^[16]

Timeline

• 1506 – Álvarez Chanca's treatise, the CDH's first record.^[13]
• 1578 – Cristóbal de Acosta uses insomnios for dream images.^[13]
• 1580 – the doublet ensueño is first recorded.^[11]
• 1775 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary defines it as vigilia, desvelo.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology insomnia.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. insomnia, sleeplessness: lack of sleep at the time for sleeping: Desde la mudanza sufre de insomnio.^[2][17][1]
2. (medicine) A sleep disorder with difficulty falling or staying asleep, early waking or broken sleep.^[7]

Related words

• insomne
• ensueño
• sueño
• Latin insomnium

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. insomnio
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3492
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 327
5. ^ 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. 601
6. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 561
7. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sueño
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4474
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
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 497
15. ^ 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. 1004
16. ^ 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. insomnio
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. insomnio