lento

Forms

lento (feminine lenta, masculine plural lentos, feminine plural lentas, superlative lentísimo)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin lentus (“pliant; sticky; lasting; slow”), first recorded in the mid-15th century in Diego de Burgos.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin adjective had already come down by inheritance as Old Spanish liento (“damp”), from the sense “sticky, viscous”; from it come relentecer “to moisten” and relente “night dew”.^[2][3][1] In the west the popular word keeps that sense: Galician lento, Portuguese lento “damp” and Asturian llentu (“damp”), and Valencian llenta means “lingering”, of a fever.^[2][5][6] The same Latin word is French lent and Italian lento “slow”.^[7]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *lento- (“soft”) and Proto-Indo-European *lent-o- (“soft, smooth, pliant”), with possible cognates in Baltic and Slavic words for board and bast.^[8] The DHLF calls the origin obscure, perhaps Etruscan.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas found the first record in Diego de Burgos, in the middle of the 15th century, and then in Oudin, who glosses it “slow, tardy, slack, heavy, lazy”.^[2] The word was frequent in Góngora, and lentamente occurs in the Quijote, but Percyvall (1591) and Covarrubias (1611) do not have it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Beside “slow”, Spanish took over the Latin sense “weak, not vigorous”, as in fuego lento “slow fire” and calentura lenta “low fever”: Laguna in 1555 has sobre las lentas brasas “over the low embers”.^[2][3][10] The Academy dictionary of 1884 also gives the old sense “flexible”, of trees and shrubs, and the pharmaceutical sense “glutinous, sticky”.^[11] In Salamanca lento means “soft” and “damp”, as of washing not yet dry.^[12][4] In music it names a slow movement, and as an adverb it means “slowly”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – first record, in Diego de Burgos.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has liento “damp” and relentecer “to moisten”.^[2][3]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, a fuego dulce y lento “a gentle, slow fire” in Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1555 – lentas brasas in Laguna's Dioscorides.^[2][10]
• early 17th century – the derivative lentitud appears, in Góngora.^[2][3]
• 1726–1739 – the Autoridades defines it as “slow, phlegmatic and calm”.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology Del lat. lentus.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. slow, unhurried in movement or action: Es un tren muy lento.^[4][1]
2. Weak, not vigorous or effective: a fuego lento.^[4][10]
3. (medicine) glutinous, sticky.^[4]
4. (obsolete) Of trees and shrubs, flexible or tough.^[4]
5. (regional, Salamanca) Soft; damp.^[12]

Noun

1. (music) A slow movement; a piece in that tempo.^[4]

Adverb

1. Slowly: La cola avanzaba lento.^[4]

Word family

• lentitud
• lentamente

Related words

• relente
• Latin lentus
• Italian lento

Usage notes

Cámara lenta is “slow motion”.^[4][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 630
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lento
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. lento
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3834
6. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. llentu
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4983
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. lentus
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. lent
10. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 384
11. ^ 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. 638
12. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lento
13. ^ 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. lento
14. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. lentu