medir

Forms

medir (first-person singular present mido, first-person singular preterite medí, past participle medido)^[1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin mētior (“to measure”).^[2][3][4][1] Spanish, like Portuguese, continues an active form of this deponent verb, which Nascentes gives for the Portuguese verb as Vulgar Latin *metire.^[5] The word survives only in Spanish, Portuguese medir and Sardinian.^[2] Catalan has instead amidar and midar, formed from mida (“measure”).^[6]

The Latin verb is a denominative of a noun Proto-Italic *mēti- (“measurement”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- (“to measure”).^[7][1] The same root is in Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron, “measure”) and Ancient Greek μῆτις (mêtis, “skill, wisdom”), and in the English word meal.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds it first in a charter of 1171 in Oelschläger's list.^[2][3] The DEMel records medir in the Fuero de Madrid (1158–1202) and in the Leonese charters of 1171.^[8] In Berceo's Vida de San Millán (c. 1230, in an 18th-century copy) one of the master builders goes la madera medir “to measure the timber” to see how far short the beam fell.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The word has been in constant use from Berceo to the present.^[2] Alfonso X's prose uses it of measuring a house or a wall in cubits, and also has the infinitive as a noun, el medir, for a measurement.^[11] Nebrija glosses it with the Latin metior and mensuro.^[12]

Autoridades records the scansion of verse, the figurative comparison of things that are not material (medir las fuerzas, el ingenio), and a colloquial sense “to lie stretched on the ground”, quoted from Lope de Vega.^[13] The Academy's 1884 edition gives the pronominal sense “to restrain oneself in speech or action” and an obsolete figurative sense “to judge, contemplate”.^[14][15] The intransitive sense “to measure, be so long or tall” is in the DLE.^[4] In many Latin American countries medirse means “to try on a garment”, and in the Dominican Republic medir is “to glare at someone”.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 1158–1202 – the Fuero de Madrid has medir.^[8]
• 1171 – a charter, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de San Millán (in an 18th-century copy).^[9]
• 1220–1250 – first record of the noun medida.^[3]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas uses it of measuring a room.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it as Latin metior.^[12]
• 1537 – first record from the Americas, in Lima, of measuring building plots.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from the Latin verb.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin etymology.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To measure: to compare a quantity with its unit to find how many times the unit is contained in it.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To check the metre of a line of verse.^[4][13]
3. (transitive, also pronominal) To compare something not material with something else, to gauge: Los dos equipos midieron sus fuerzas.^[4][1]
4. (transitive, also pronominal) To moderate one's words or actions.^[4]
5. (intransitive) To have a certain size, height, length, area or volume: La mesa mide dos metros de largo.^[4]
6. (pronominal, Latin America) To try on a garment.^[16]

Word family

• medida
• medición
• medidor
• desmedido

Related words

• mesura
• mesurar
• comedir
• dimensión
• inmenso
• Latin mētior
• Portuguese medir

Usage notes

It changes e to i in some forms (mido, mide, mida), as Autoridades already noted.^[1][13] The phrase medirse alguien consigo mismo means to keep one's actions within one's means.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 4, 11
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. medir
4. ^ 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. medir
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. medir
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. metiri
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. medir
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. medir
10. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 482
11. ^ 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. medir
12. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 379
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 529
14. ^ 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. 690
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 695
16. ^ 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. medir
17. ^ 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. medir
18. ^ 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. medir
19. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1125