mensaje

Forms

mensaje m (plural mensajes)^[1] Old Spanish wrote mensage, message, mesaje, mesage and mensaie; the form without /n/ is recorded from 1220–1250.^[2][3] Covarrubias and the Autoridades still spell it mensage.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Occitan messatge (“message”) (spelt mensage in the oldest texts), a derivative of mes (“messenger”), from Latin missus (“sent; messenger”), the past participle of mittō (“to send”).^[3][6][7][8] Wiktionary allows a borrowing from Old French message as well, and traces both to Medieval Latin missāticum.^[1] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 and García de Diego took the word from this Medieval Latin form; the DLE now derives it from the Occitan word with the suffix -atge.^[9][10][6]

The French word was formed with the suffix -age from mes (“envoy, messenger”), and is recorded from 1050.^[11] The Occitan form passed into Italian messaggio.^[12] The Latin verb first meant “to let go, release”, and only later “to send”.^[13][14][1] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to exchange, remove”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the word for a spoken message sent by envoys: the people of Teruel and Calatayud al rey de Valencia enbiaron con mensaje “sent word to the king of Valencia”.^[15][3] The first record without a later copy is in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), where the town's officers must go on the council's errands, ennos mensages de conceio.^[15]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the word meant a message sent by word of mouth and also news; the General estoria explains evangelio as buen mensaie, the good news.^[16] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as the message one lord sends to another through a trusted person, and noted the older name mensageria.^[4] The 1726 Autoridades still called it a spoken message.^[5]

The political sense appeared in the 19th century: a Buenos Aires text of 1832 speaks of a Mensaje al Congreso, and the Academy's dictionary of 1884 added the official communication between the legislature and the executive.^[17][9] Today it also names the moral or artistic message of a work, the linguistic and biological senses, and the electronic message.^[6][18] Tagalog borrowed the word as Tagalog mensahe.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has mensaje (in a 14th-century copy).^[15][3]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has mensages, the first record without a later copy.^[15]
• 1220–1250 – the form mesaje is recorded.^[3]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria explains the Gospel as buen mensaie.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Latin nuncius and nuncium.^[19]
• 1568 – the first record in the Americas, in Guatemala.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from Latin mitto.^[4]
• 1832 – a Mensaje al Congreso in Buenos Aires.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the official communication between the powers of the state.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A message that someone sends to another person: Le dejé un mensaje en la recepción.^[6][1]
2. The religious, moral, intellectual or aesthetic contribution of a person, doctrine or work; the deeper meaning a work conveys.^[6]
3. A communication between bodies or institutions; a solemn public address by the head of state, as in mensaje de la Corona.^[6][1]
4. An e-mail; a text or voice message.^[6][1]
5. (biology) A signal that causes a response in cells or organisms.^[6]
6. (linguistics) The set of signs that are the object of a communication; its content.^[6]

Word family

• mensajero
• mensajear
• mensajería

Related words

• meter
• misa
• Latin mittō
• French message

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mensaje
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mensaje
4. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1130
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 544
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. mensaje
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
9. ^ a b c 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
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. mensaje
16. ^ 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. mensaje
17. ^ a b c 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. mensaje
18. ^ 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. 443
19. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv