místico

Forms

místico (feminine mística, masculine plural místicos, feminine plural místicas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mysticus (“of the sacred mysteries”), from Ancient Greek μυστικός (mustikós, “connected with the mysteries”).^[2][1] The BDELC and VOX take it directly from the Greek word, which properly meant “relating to religious mysteries”.^[3][4]

The Greek adjective is formed from μύστης (mústēs, “one initiated into the mysteries”) with the suffix -ικός (-ikós).^[1][5] Corominas relates it to misterio, from the same family, and both to μύω (múō, “I close”).^[3] In Latin the word belonged to the mystery cults, and in Medieval Latin it came to mean “symbolical, allegorical” and “sacred”.^[6][7]

The same word is Catalan místic, Portuguese místico, Italian mistico and French mystique.^[8][9][10] Cunha dates the Portuguese word to the 14th century, and the DHLF the French one to 1380.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Juan Fernández de Heredia's translation of Eutropius (1377–1399) calls the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast la scriptura mistica “the mystic writing”, read by Daniel; an earlier hit is the Latin title De mistica theologia.^[12] In the early 15th century the Soberano bien attributed to Saint Isidore uses mística for the third, spiritual way of reading Scripture.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the word meant “hidden, symbolical”: Enrique de Villena (1427–1428) speaks of the cuerpo míxtico “mystical body” of the city's people, a phrase used in Mexico in 1564 for the body politic.^[12][13] The BDELC and Segura date the word 1515.^[3][14] The feminine noun mística names the theology of the spiritual and contemplative life; in 1683 a text from the New Kingdom of Granada names la teología escolástica beside la moral positiva y mística.^[13][14]

The Academy's 1817 edition defined the adjective as what contains a mystery or hidden reason and what belongs to mysticism, and used it as a noun for one devoted to the spiritual life or writing on it.^[15] In Andalusia, the Caribbean and parts of South America místico also means “fussy, affected, prudish”, recorded in Ecuador and Colombia by Malaret and by Santamaría in 1942.^[2][16][17]

Timeline

• 1377–1399 – Juan Fernández de Heredia's Eutropius has la scriptura mistica.^[12]
• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena writes cuerpo míxtico.^[12]
• 1515 – first record according to the BDELC.^[3]
• 1564 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico, in cuerpo místico.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy enters the adjective and its noun use.^[15]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin and Greek.^[18]
• 1942 – Santamaría records the Ecuadorian sense “affected, pedantic”.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Containing a mystery or hidden reason.^[2]
2. Relating to mística or misticismo, mystical: la poesía mística de San Juan de la Cruz.^[2][1]
3. (also as a noun) Devoted to the spiritual and contemplative life; a mystic.^[2][1][19]
4. (also as a noun) Who writes on mystical theology.^[2]
5. (Andalusia, Colombia, Honduras, Panama, Puerto Rico, Venezuela) Finicky (melindroso), affected, prudish.^[2][20]
6. (Cuba, youth slang) Proud, conceited.^[20]

Word family

• mística
• misticismo

Related words

• misterio
• mistificar
• Latin mysticus
• Ancient Greek μυστικός (mustikós)

Usage notes

A separate místico names a coasting vessel of the Mediterranean with two or three masts and lateen sails; the DLE derives it, with doubt, from a hypothetical Italian *mistaco influenced by this word, and Corriente, Pereira and Vicente from Arabic musaṭṭaḥ “flat (boat)”, through Italian mistico.^[2][21][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. místico
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. misterio
4. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. místico
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 467
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. mysticus
8. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 374
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
10. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
13. ^ a b c Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
14. ^ a b 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. 471
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 577
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 254
17. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 285
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 664
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. místico
20. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
21. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter
22. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 706