interés

Forms

interés m (plural intereses)^[1] Medieval texts write interesse, interese and enteresse; the form interesse was still common in the 16th century and appears in the first part of the Quijote.^[2][3] Ladino has entereso.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin interesse (“compensation; interest on a loan”), the infinitive of the Latin verb “to be between; to matter” used as a noun.^[5][6][2] The Medieval Latin noun meant damages for a broken contract and the interest on capital.^[7][8] The DLE glosses the Latin verb as “to matter”.^[9]

The same Medieval Latin noun gave Portuguese interesse, Italian interesse and French intérêt; the French word, recorded in 1290, comes rather from the Latin third person interest (“it matters”).^[10][11][12]

The verb is formed from Latin inter- (“between”) + sum (“to be”).^[13][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The early hits of the CDH are the Latin verb in Latin charters.^[14] The first in a Castilian text is a lease of 1300, where it is the compensation owed for late payment: que diese por razón de dannos e de interesse al cabildo “that he should give the chapter, by way of damages and interest”.^[14] The DEMel cites the spelling jnterese in the legal treatise of Maestre Jacobo (1252–1289).^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century the word belonged to the language of contracts, where it appears again and again in the formula por nombre de pena e de interesse e de postura, the penalty and compensation agreed for a broken undertaking.^[14] Terreros separates the sense of whatever concerns one's estate, love or comfort from the money earned by capital.^[15]

The Academy's 1843 dictionary lists profit, value, a strong inclination of the mind towards a person, object or story, the earnings of money, and in the plural one's fortune.^[16] The modern dictionary keeps these senses, and adds the plural for one's moral or material advantage.^[9] Set phrases of finance and law include interés compuesto “compound interest” and interés legal “legal interest”.^[9][1] In the Americas the word appears from 1520, in Cuba.^[17]

Timeline

• 1252–1289 – the spelling jnterese in Maestre Jacobo's Doctrinal.^[3]
• 1300 – a lease contract uses interesse for compensation owed to a chapter.^[14]
• 1417 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[18]
• 1438 – the first record in Corominas's dictionary.^[5]
• 1520 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[17]
• 1600 – the modern form interés in Góngora.^[2]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros distinguishes the general sense from the interest earned by capital.^[15]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “interesse, importar”.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. profit, benefit, gain.^[9]
2. The value or importance of something: un edificio de gran interés.^[9][20]
3. (finance) interest, the earnings produced by capital or charged on a loan.^[9][1]
4. Attention, curiosity or inclination towards a person, thing or story: Siguió el partido con mucho interés.^[9][1]
5. An involvement or stake in an undertaking.^[1]
6. (in the plural) One's property or fortune; also one's moral or material advantage: defender sus intereses.^[9]
7. (usually in the plural) A hobby, a subject one cares about.^[1]

Word family

• interesar
• desinterés
• interesado
• interesante

Related words

• Latin intersum
• Portuguese interesse
• French intérêt

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 213
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. interés
4. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. entereso
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. interés
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 390
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. interesse
8. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. interesse
9. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. interés
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1913
11. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. interesse
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. intérêt
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. intersum
14. ^ 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. interés
15. ^ a b 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, 359
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 412
17. ^ 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. enterés
18. ^ 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. interés
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 563
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. interés