material

Forms

material m or f (masculine and feminine plural materiales)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin māteriālis (“made of matter”), a learned word.^[2][1][3] The Latin adjective is formed from māteria (“wood, timber; matter”) with the suffix -ālis.^[4][5][1] It is post-classical, found in Macrobius and Ambrose.^[6]

The Latin noun was formed from māter (“mother”), in the sense “source”; its sense “matter” is a semantic loan from Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē, “wood, matter”), introduced by Cicero.^[7][1] The inherited Spanish outcome of the Latin noun is madera “wood”, beside the learned materia.^[3][8]

French took the same Latin adjective as French matériel in 1270, first as a term of scholastic philosophy.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (1246–1252, known from an 18th-century copy) says of the Virgin's cloak, which saved a drowning pilgrim, obra era angélica, ca non material “it was an angelic work, not a material one”.^[10][11] Lanchetas glosses it as “human work”.^[11] The BDELC dates the adjective 1220–1250.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts the adjective set the bodily against the spiritual: Alfonso X's Setenario speaks of the entendimiento material that is born with a person, and the Libro del caballero Zifar of the king's cuchillo material beside the priest's spiritual one.^[10] A plural noun materiales “substances” appears in the Libro de Palladio of 1380–1385, but the BDELC dates the noun from 1633.^[10][3]

Covarrubias in 1611 used it for a man of little wit and low thoughts, a sense the Academy keeps as “coarse, without wit”.^[12][2] The Diccionario de Autoridades set it against the formal and the spiritual, and among moralists used pecado material for a wrong act done in innocent ignorance.^[13] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the noun for an ingredient and for the materials needed for a work; in 1899 it added the machines and tools needed for a service.^[14][15]

In Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Uruguay de material is said of buildings of brick or masonry, and in Tabasco casa de material is a stone or brick house.^[16][17] In Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Peru a material is a pretty young woman.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – the BDELC's date of first record, from Berceo.^[3][20]
• 1252–1270 – entendimiento material in Alfonso X's Setenario.^[10][21]
• 1380–1385 – the plural noun materiales in the Libro de Palladio.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: material, cosa de materia, Latin materialis.^[22]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Puebla: building materials of wood and nails.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias uses it of a dull, base-minded man.^[12]
• 1633 – the BDELC's date for the noun.^[3][20]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin materialis.^[24]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or relating to matter (materia); material, physical.^[2][1]
2. Opposed to the spiritual (espiritual): Solo le preocupan los bienes materiales.^[2]
3. Coarse, without wit or sharpness.^[2]

Noun

1. A substance or combination of substances, usually solid, used for a particular purpose: El material de esta mesa es roble.^[2][1]
2. Tanned leather (cuero).^[2]
3. Each of the materials needed for a work, or all of them; mostly in the plural: materiales de construcción.^[2]
4. Documents that serve as the basis for intellectual work.^[2]
5. The set of machines, tools or other objects needed for a service or a profession, equipment: material de laboratorio.^[2]
6. (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Peru) A pretty young woman.^[18]

Word family

• materialidad
• materialismo
• materialista
• materializar
• inmaterial

Related words

• materia
• madera
• Latin māteria
• French matériel

Usage notes

Autor material is the person who physically carries out an act, as opposed to the one who plans it.^[25] The expression es material “it makes no difference” is rarely used now.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. material
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. madera
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. māteriālis
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 449
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. māteriālis
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. māteria
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. material
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. matériel
10. ^ 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, p. s.v. material
11. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 476
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. 1122
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. material
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 560
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 643
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 548
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 705
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. material
19. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. material
20. ^ 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. 411
21. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. material
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 378
23. ^ 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. material
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 685
25. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. material