mediación

Forms

mediación f (plural mediaciones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mediatio.^[2][3] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of mediar, with no date of its own.^[4] The Latin noun was formed from the Late Latin verb mediō (“to halve; to be in the middle”), from medius (“middle”); in Medieval Latin it meant “mediation, intervention”.^[5][1][6] The adjective goes back to *meþio-, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“between”), the source also of Ancient Greek μέσος (mésos).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is the Spanish translation of Guy de Chauliac's treatise on surgery (1498), where la mediacion is the middle point of a length.^[8] The sense “intercession, intervention” follows in Las Casas's Historia de las Indias (c. 1527–1561): two men were reconciled por mediación del obispo “through the bishop's mediation”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Mexico City in 1570 a text asks for a pause en la mediación de los Versos “in the middle of the verses”, and 18th-century texts from Costa Rica and Mexico use the word for the distance or the halfway point of a road.^[9] Autoridades gave first the sense of the space between two things with another between them, then the intervention of someone who tries to reconcile others or obtain something for another.^[10] Alemany (1917) adds a term of church music, the short cadence in the middle of a psalm verse.^[11] In the Canaries mediación still means the middle or central part, as in a la mediación de la calle “halfway along the street”.^[12] The DLE now has the general sense “action of mediating” and a legal one, the work of a person trusted by both sides to avoid or end a dispute.^[2]

Timeline

• 1498 – the Spanish translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery uses it for a middle point.^[8]
• c. 1527–1561 – Las Casas uses por mediación de “through the mediation of”.^[8]
• 1570 – first recorded in the Americas, in Mexico City, for the middle of the verses.^[9]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines both the sense of distance and that of intercession.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin mediatio.^[13]
• 1917 – Alemany records the musical sense.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. mediation: the action and effect of mediating (mediar), intervening between parties to reach an agreement: La mediación de un diplomático evitó la ruptura.^[2][14][1]
2. (law) The work of a person trusted by both sides of a conflict, aimed at avoiding or ending a lawsuit (litigio).^[2]
3. (Canary Islands) The middle or central part of something.^[12]

Related words

• mediar
• mediador
• medio
• Latin medius

Usage notes

Por mediación de “through the good offices of” is the commonest phrase.^[15][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. mediación
3. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. mediación
4. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 11
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. medio
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. mediatio
7. ^ 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. medius
8. ^ 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. mediación
9. ^ a b 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. mediación
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. mediación
11. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1107
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. mediación
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 689
14. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. mediación
15. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mediación