límite

Forms

límite m (plural límites)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin līmes (“path between two fields; boundary, frontier”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] Its inherited doublet is linde, recorded from the beginnings of the language: Oelschläger has it as a feminine from 1074, and the form limde in 934 and 1156.^[2][3] Bénaben traces the popular development from the Latin accusative step by step to the modern popular form.^[5] The feminine gender of the popular word is foreign to Latin, where the noun is masculine; it recurs in Portuguese linda and Catalan llinda (“lintel”).^[2]

The Latin word first named the paths and balks that divided land surveyed into plots, then a boundary.^[6][7] The OLD considers it probably related to līmus (“sidelong, oblique”), and Wiktionary derives it from that adjective; the DHLF calls it a word without a known etymology, compared only as a hypothesis with līmen (“threshold”).^[6][1][7]

French took the same Latin word as French limite about 1372.^[7] limítrofe comes through French limitrophe from Late Latin limitrophus, a compound with the Greek verb for “to feed”, used of land given to soldiers guarding the frontiers.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first reliable hit in the CDH is a lease in the documents of León cathedral of 1419–1426, where houses han por límites “have as their boundaries” a house, yard and garden of the church.^[8] Enrique de Villena's translation of the Aeneid (1427–1428) uses it of the bounds that Dido's oxhide had marked out.^[8] The BDELC dates the word 1438; the DCECH's first record is in Alonso de Palencia's dictionary of 1490: por el vmbral entran los ombres en las casas como por límites en los campos “people enter houses by the threshold as they enter fields by the boundaries”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word remained bookish for a long time: the DCECH notes it in Pero Mejía (1545) and finds it common from the Golden Age, in the Quijote and Covarrubias; only in modern times has it entered everyday speech, even among the popular classes.^[2] In the Americas it was used from 1548 of the bounds of the colonial governorships, and in Mexico in 1591 of moderation in eating, con tal límite y medida.^[9]

The Academy's dictionaries of 1817 to 1869 have only “bound, border of kingdoms, provinces or estates”.^[10][11] In 1899 the Academy added the figurative sense “end” and a mathematical sense, a term beyond which the value of a quantity cannot pass.^[12] The modern dictionary adds the limit of a period of time, the extreme of a person's strength, and the use in apposition, as in situación límite and dimensiones límite.^[4][13]

Timeline

• 934 – the inherited doublet appears as limde, and linde follows in 1074.^[2][3]
• 1419–1426 – límites in the documents of León cathedral.^[8]
• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena uses it in his translation of the Aeneid.^[8]
• 1438 – the BDELC's date of first record; the verb limitar has the same date.^[3]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia's dictionary, the DCECH's first record.^[2]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[9]
• 1817 – first entry in the Academy's dictionary, as “bound, border”.^[10]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the figurative and mathematical senses.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A real or imaginary line that separates two pieces of land, countries or territories; a border, boundary.^[4][1]
2. An end or term; often in apposition, as in fecha límite “deadline”.^[4][13]
3. The furthest point of a period of time: El límite para pagar la matrícula es el viernes.^[4]
4. The furthest point that physical or mental powers can reach: Corrió hasta el límite de su resistencia.^[4]
5. (mathematics) The fixed value that the terms of an infinite sequence approach ever more closely, a limit.^[4][14]

Word family

• limitar
• extralimitarse
• ilimitado
• limitación

Related words

• linde
• limítrofe
• Latin līmes
• French limite

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 656
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. límite
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. límite
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. límite
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. līmes
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. limite
8. ^ 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. límite
9. ^ 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. límite
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 530
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 468
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 604
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. límite
14. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. límite