invitar

Forms

invitar (first-person singular present invito, first-person singular preterite invité, past participle invitado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin invītāre (“to invite; to entertain”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The inherited outcome of the same Latin verb is envidar “to bid, raise the stakes” in card games.^[2][3][5] Across the Romance languages the inherited verb mostly means “to challenge, to bid”, as Catalan envidar, Portuguese envidar and Old French envier, while the sense “to invite” passed to a variant *convitāre.^[6][2] Corominas explains that variant as an alteration under the influence of convīvium (“banquet”), and it gave convidar, recorded from the Cid.^[2][3]

The Latin verb seems to be in- (“in”) added to a verb *wītā- “to pursue”, from Proto-Indo-European *weyh₁- (“to chase, pursue”), in de Vaan's analysis.^[7][1] Others connect it with invocō (“to call upon”), and Job has proposed a frequentative of voveō (“to vow”), which de Vaan finds formally difficult.^[7][1] Bénaben notes that its prefix is not the negative one of invītus (“unwilling”), which survives in Old Spanish amidos (“unwillingly”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first reliable record in the CDH is Enrique de Villena's Tratado de consolación of 1424: invitando a mí, suplicatoria e piadosamente, a vos por algúnt scripto “inviting me, beseechingly and piously, to [write to] you in some writing”.^[9] An earlier hit of 1202 is a Latin text, where invite is the Latin adverb “unwillingly”.^[9] Corominas found the word no earlier than Oudin's dictionary of 1607, which refers the reader to convidar.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the usual verb for “to invite” was convidar;^[2][10] Alfonso X's Estoria de España even uses the inherited envidar for inviting someone to a meal.^[2][10] Invitar must have been rare in the classical period: it is missing from Covarrubias, Percyvall, Minsheu, Autoridades and Terreros.^[2] The Academy marked it as obsolete in 1843, when invitación first entered the dictionary.^[2][11] By 1869 the mark was gone.^[12] Later, perhaps under French influence, it became more common than convidar in Spain, while convidar is still general elsewhere, for example in Argentina.^[2]

The sense “to pay for what another person eats or drinks” is recorded in Mexico in 1935 in invitase la ronda “paid for the round”.^[13] Today it is one of the verb's main senses, as in the phrase invita la casa “it's on the house”.^[4][1] The word was borrowed into Tagalog as imbita.^[1]

Timeline

• 1424 – invitando in Enrique de Villena's Tratado de consolación.^[9]
• 1591 – first record of envidar in its card-game sense, in Percyvall.^[2]
• 1607 – Oudin's dictionary lists invitar;^[2][3] Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1692 – the first record from the Americas, in Nuevo León.^[13]
• 1843 – the Academy marks invitar as obsolete and first lists invitación.^[11][2]
• 1869 – the obsolete mark is dropped.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin invitare.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To invite: to ask someone to a meal, party or other event: Nos invitaron a la boda de su hija.^[4][1]
2. To treat: to pay for what another person eats, drinks or enjoys, as a courtesy: Esta noche invito yo.^[4][1]
3. To encourage, incite someone to something: Este sol invita a dar un paseo.^[4][15]
4. To ask someone politely but firmly to do something: Nos invitaron a salir de la sala.^[4][15]

Word family

• invitación
• invitado

Related words

• Latin invītō
• English invite

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 461
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. invitar
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. invitar
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3553
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. invitare
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. invitar
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. invitar
10. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. invitar
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 415
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 441
13. ^ 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. envitar
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 566
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. invitar