mayor

Forms

mayor m or f (masculine and feminine plural mayores)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin maior (“greater”), the comparative of magnus (“great”).^[2][3][4][1] The Leonese variant maor appears in the Libro de Alexandre.^[2]

The same word is Portuguese maior, Italian maggiore, Catalan major and Old French maire.^[5][2] Galician-Portuguese long had maior, maor and mor side by side.^[2] The Latin comparative goes back to *majjōs and *méǵh₂yōs, from *meǵh₂- (“great”) with the comparative suffix *-yōs.^[1][6] Already in Roman imperial times the Latin word named people of higher rank, above all in maior domus, the source of mayordomo.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140).^[2][3] The Cid's aquella mayor az “that largest battle line” is the CDH's first hit, in a 14th-century copy.^[7] The Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180) has the spelling maior.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Berceo it means both “greater” and “older”, and he already has the pleonasm más mayor.^[8][2] Alfonso X uses it as the comparative of grande and also as a noun for a war leader or captain.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds “head of a community” and “a person who has reached the legal age”.^[10] The Academy's 1884 edition listed the officials called mayor, the sargento mayor and, as an old sense, “leader, captain”, and today's dictionary adds that some armies still use it as a rank equal to comandante.^[11][4] In Guatemala mayor is also a municipal police assistant.^[12] In the United States mayor is also used for a city mayor, a loan from English.^[13][14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][3]
• c. 1180 – maior in the Auto de los Reyes Magos.^[7]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative mayoral.^[3]
• 1251 – mayoría in the Calila e Dimna.^[2]
• 1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for a war leader.^[9]
• 1370 – mayorazgo “entailed estate”.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias notes that the Latin word sometimes means “old man”.^[15]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades has “head of a community” and “of legal age”.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the military and official senses.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Comparative of grande: bigger, greater in quantity or quality: Necesito una caja mayor que esta.^[4][1]
2. Of a person: older: Mi hermana mayor vive en Sevilla.^[4][1]
3. Of a person: elderly, getting on in years.^[4]
4. Important, serious: palabras mayores.^[4]
5. main, principal; having higher rank among those of its group: la plaza mayor.^[4][1]
6. (music) Major, of a key or interval.^[1]

Noun

1. The head or superior of a community or body.^[4][1]
2. The chief clerk of an office or secretariat.^[4]
3. (military) A sargento mayor.^[4]
4. (military) A major, a rank in some armies equal to comandante; formerly, a war leader or captain.^[4][1]
5. (in the plural) Grandparents and forebears; ancestors.^[4][1]
6. (feminine, logic) The major premise of a syllogism.^[4]
7. (feminine, nautical) The mainsail.^[4]

Word family

• mayoral
• mayorazgo
• mayoría
• mayorista
• mayordomo
• mayormente

Related words

• majestad
• máximo
• mayúsculo
• grande
• Latin maior

Usage notes

Mayor has the same form for both genders and makes the superlative with the article: el mayor de sus primos.^[1][16] Set phrases include al por mayor “wholesale”, mayor de edad “of age” and estado mayor “general staff”.^[1][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 890
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mayor
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. mayor
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5247
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. maior
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. mayor
8. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 459
9. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. mayor
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 517
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. 687
12. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. mayor
13. ^ Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University, p. 72
14. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 128
15. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1103
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. mayor
17. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 451