manipulación

Forms

manipulación f (plural manipulaciones)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish manipular + -ción.^[1] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of manipular, which he dates from Terreros in the late 18th century and derives from Medieval Latin manipulare.^[2][3][4] The French manipuler is dated 1795.^[2][3][4] The verb belongs to Latin manipulus (“handful”), a compound of manus (“hand”) with the root of pleō (“to fill”).^[2][5] The same family has the learned manípulo, recorded since Berceo, and the popular manojo, from a Vulgar Latin alteration of the same Latin word.^[2]

Echegaray compared Catalan manipulació, French manipulation and Italian manipolazione.^[6] The noun is recorded in the CDH more than a century before the verb's first date in Corominas.^[7][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is from Carlos García's La desordenada codicia de los bienes ajenos (1619), where the speaker says he puts nothing of his own into it but the manipulación, the handling.^[7] Feijoo used it in the 1720s and 1730s for the preparation of medicines and the working of metals.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the word was used for practical operations: the handling of stage machinery, the preparation of a drug, the assaying of metals, the fixing of a dye.^[7] In the Americas it is found in Peru in 1788 and in Lima in 1792 for the operations of chemistry.^[8] Echegaray still labelled it a term of pharmacy, the making up of a medicine.^[6]

The Academy's dictionaries define it simply as the action and effect of manipular.^[9][10] As the verb took on the sense of interfering skilfully and often deceitfully in politics, the market or the news, the noun followed it.^[4][8] Medicine uses it for manual treatment of a part of the body, mostly of the joints and the spine.^[11]

Timeline

• 1619 – first record, in Carlos García.^[7]
• 1729 – Feijoo writes of the manipulación of an antimony medicine.^[7]
• 1765–1783 – first record of the verb manipular in the BDELC's dating.^[3]
• 1788 – first record from the Americas, in Peru.^[8]
• 1884 – the Academy defines it as the action and effect of manipular.^[9]
• 1986 – a Mexico City newspaper writes of maniobras de manipulación “manoeuvres of manipulation”.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. handling: the act of working something with the hands or with an instrument: la manipulación de residuos.^[10][4]
2. manipulation: skilful and often deceitful interference in politics, the market or information, distorting the truth for particular interests.^[10][4][1]
3. (medicine) Manual treatment of a part of the body, usually of the locomotor system.^[11]

Related words

• manipular
• manípulo
• manojo
• mano
• French manipulation

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 817
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mano
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. manipular
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 441
6. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 232
7. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. manipulación
8. ^ 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. manipulación
9. ^ 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. 671
10. ^ a b c 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. manipulación
11. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. manipulación