junto

Forms

junto (feminine junta, masculine plural juntos, feminine plural juntas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin iūnctus (“joined, united”), the past participle of iungō (“to yoke, join”).^[2][3][4][1] It was long used as the irregular past participle of juntar, which is formed from it.^[5][6][7] García de Diego gives a Pyrenean chunto beside the Castilian form.^[8] junta belongs to the same family, and yunta “yoke of draught animals” is a rustic doublet of it, with the dialect treatment of initial /j/ found in yugo and uncir.^[3][2]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *(H)iunégti (“to yoke”), with a nasal infix, from the root *yewg-; its cognates include Ancient Greek ζεύγνυμι (zeúgnumi) and Lithuanian jùngti.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's earliest record of junto is in the Fuero de Coria of the early 13th century.^[10] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has it from 1272, in Alfonso X's General Estoria.^[11] Corominas did not find it before the 15th century, in the Biblia medieval romanceada and in Alonso de Palencia, who wrote of animals yoked para que fagan lavor y vayan juntos “so that they work and go together”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Palencia already had the prepositional phrase junto a “next to”, and Nebrija glossed junto con otra cosa, tocándola “joined to another thing, touching it” with Latin contiguus.^[3][12] Pérez de Hita, Mateo Alemán and Cervantes also wrote junto de, which survives in Argentina; in Castilian junto a is the current form, and junto con means “together with”.^[3] The Lazarillo has en junto “wholesale”, which later editions replaced with por junto.^[3]

The Diccionario de Autoridades treated it as the past participle of juntar and gave the adverbial senses “near” and “jointly”, with por junto or de por junto “in bulk” for household buying.^[5] In Colombia juntos came to be used in place of ambos “both”.^[3] Of a door or window, junta “not quite closed” is found in Juan Martí's Guzmán, perhaps a Valencianism, and survives in the Dominican Republic.^[3][13]

Timeline

• early 13th century – the DEMel's earliest record, in the Fuero de Coria.^[10]
• 1272 – Alfonso X's General Estoria.^[11]
• 15th century – Corominas's first record, in the Biblia medieval romanceada.^[3][2]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia has junto a.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses junto con otra cosa with contiguus.^[12]
• 1519 – the first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico: xunto a la mar.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records por junto and de por junto.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology iunctus and the phrase en junto.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. joined, united; close together: Pusieron las dos camas juntas.^[4][15][1]
2. (mostly plural) together: acting or being with another person at the same time: Estudiaron juntos toda la carrera.^[4][1]

Adverb

1. Together, jointly; near, beside.^[4][1]
2. (en junto, por junto) In all, in total; wholesale.^[4][1]

Preposition

1. (junto a) next to, beside: Se sentó junto a la ventana.^[15][1]
2. (junto con) Together with, along with.^[15][1]

Word family

• junta
• juntar
• cejijunto
• ojijunto

Related words

• yunta
• juntura
• ayuntar
• coyuntura
• conjunto
• adjunto
• yugo
• Latin iungō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. junto
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 539
4. ^ a b c d e 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. junto
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 332
6. ^ 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. 620
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 341
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3625
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. junto
11. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. junto
12. ^ 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. junto
13. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org
14. ^ 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. junto
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. junto