legislador

Forms

legislador m (plural legisladores, feminine legisladora, feminine plural legisladoras)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin lēgislātor (“proposer of a law, lawgiver”).^[2][3][1][4] In classical Latin it was usually written apart, lēgis (“of a law”), the genitive of the word for “law”, and lātor (“proposer”).^[4][5] The second part is formed on the supine of ferō (“to carry”), used in the Latin expression for proposing a law.^[6][2] The same Latin word is Portuguese legislador, Catalan legislador, French législateur and Italian legislatore.^[7][8][6][1]

Corominas and Segura date the word from Covarrubias (1611), but the HSMS has it in 1552 and Boyd-Bowman in Mexico in 1595.^{[2][9][10][11]} According to Corominas, legislar (1599, in the Guzmán de Alfarache) is a back-formation on this noun and on legislación.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the HSMS is Luis de Aranda's Glosa de moral sentido, printed in Valladolid in 1552.^[10] A Mexican text of 1595 calls God the Lawgiver: changing his commandments procede en deshonra del Legislador “brings dishonour on the Lawgiver”.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 defined the legislator as he who makes laws with authority.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defined the word as one who gives or establishes laws, and also, figuratively, as a censor or critic of something, quoting Quevedo: Descubriose por Juez y legislador desta tropelía Empedocles “Empedocles revealed himself as judge and censor of this outrage”.^[13] The Academy kept that figurative sense in its editions of 1843 and 1869.^[14][15] In 1884 it made the word an adjective, “that legislates”, also used as a noun, as the DLE does today.^[16][3] From the 18th century it is used in the plural for those who reform the laws (Lima, 1775), and the Spanish Wiktionary gives the sense “member of the body that passes the laws of a country”.^[11][17]

Timeline

• 1552 – Luis de Aranda, Glosa de moral sentido.^[10]
• 1595 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[11]
• 1599 – legislar in the Guzmán de Alfarache.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the word, Corominas's first record.^[12][2]
• 1734 – Autoridades adds the figurative sense “censor”.^[13]
• 1817 – legislación is in the Academy's dictionary.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy defines it as an adjective, “that legislates”.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That makes laws (legislar); legislative: Las cámaras legisladoras debatirán la reforma.^[3][18]

Noun

1. A legislator, lawgiver: someone who makes laws (ley), especially a member of a legislative body.^[3][1][17]

Word family

• legislar
• colegislador

Related words

• ley
• legislación
• legislativo
• legislatura

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 639
3. ^ a b c d 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. legislador
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. lēgislātor
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. lēgis-lātor
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. législateur
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2013
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. legislador
9. ^ 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. 367
10. ^ a b c 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. legislador
11. ^ a b c d 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. legislador
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1075
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 379
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 433
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 461
16. ^ 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. 635
17. ^ a b Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. legislador
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. legislador