mentir

Forms

mentir (first-person singular present miento, first-person singular preterite mentí, past participle mentido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mentīrī (“to lie”); Old Spanish mentir already has the modern form.^[2][3][1] Bénaben and Cunha start from a Vulgar Latin active *mentīre, which replaced the deponent verb of the classical language.^[4][5] The stressed /e/ of the stem became the diphthong /je/ (⟨miento⟩, ⟨mientes⟩), while unstressed /e/ turns into /i/ in forms such as ⟨mintió⟩, an irregularity the Diccionario de Autoridades already describes.^[6]

The same verb is Portuguese mentir and Catalan mentir, and also Italian mentire.^[7][8] Coromines records the Catalan verb from the earliest texts, among them Llull.^[9] The nouns mentira and mentiroso are shared with Portuguese;^[2] Corominas explains their ⟨r⟩ as a dissimilation of the dentals in a derivative *mentidoso of the participle mentida, which survives as Catalan mentida.^[2]

mentior is a fourth-conjugation verb formed from mēns (“mind”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *mn̥ti- and Proto-Indo-European *mn̥-ti- (“thought, mind”).^[10][1] De Vaan explains the sense “to lie” as a shift from “to have second thoughts, be inventive” to “to make up, lie”.^[10] Gómez de Silva puts it as saying something created in the mind and not real.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), in the formula of a formal challenge: „¡Mientes, Ferrando, de cuanto dicho has!” “You lie, Fernando, in all that you have said!”^[12][13] Menéndez Pidal notes the construction with de for the thing lied about, also found in the Libro de Alexandre: „de quanto dixo mentió el messagero”.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the verb for “to say what is false”, “to lead into error”, “to feign or falsify” and “to break a promise or a pact”; all four senses occur in the prose of Alfonso X.^[15] Berceo uses it for “to lie, deceive”.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave “to say the opposite of what one understands”, “to deceive, frustrate” (of signs and hopes) and “to disagree, not match”.^[6]

The Academy's 1817 edition recorded the proverbs el mentir pide memoria “lying needs a good memory” and el mentir y el compadrar, ambos andan a la par, and the phrase no me dejará mentir, used to call a person or thing as witness.^[17] From 1869 it also noted the first person miento, said to correct oneself.^[18] The sense “to break a promise” entered the dictionary in 1884; the DLE now marks it and “to falsify” as obsolete.^[19][3]

In Costa Rica and Ecuador an instrument that gives an inaccurate reading is said to lie.^[20] Leonese uses the verb of a cow or mare that has gone past its time without giving birth.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has mientes in a formal challenge.^[12]
• 1254 – the prose of Alfonso X uses it for “to lead into error”.^[15]
• 1270–1284 – it is used for breaking a pact in the same prose.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes mentir a sabiendas (Latin mentior) from lying unknowingly.^[22]
• 1541 – the first record from the Americas, in Michoacán.^[23]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “to lie”.^[24]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin mentiri and quotes the proverb quien pierde y miente, su bolsa lo siente.^[25]
• 1817 – the Academy records el mentir pide memoria.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. mentiri” for the first time.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To lie: to say or show the opposite of what one knows, believes or thinks: Nunca le ha mentido a su hermano.^[3][1][26]
2. (intransitive) To mislead, give a false impression, said of signs, hopes or appearances: A veces las apariencias mienten.^[3][27]
3. (transitive, literary) To feign or imitate; to make one believe in something that is not there.^[3][26]
4. (intransitive, Spain) To clash with something, not be in harmony with it.^[27][26]
5. (transitive, obsolete) To falsify something.^[3]
6. (transitive, obsolete) To break a promise or a pact.^[3][15]
7. (Costa Rica, Ecuador) Of an instrument: to give an inaccurate reading.^[20]

Word family

• mentira
• mentiroso
• mentirijillas
• mentidero
• mentís
• desmentir

Related words

• mente
• Latin mentior
• Portuguese mentir

Usage notes

Mentir is conjugated like sentir: miento, mintió, mintiendo.^[6][1] The DLE records the phrase miente más que habla, said of someone who lies a great deal, and Moliner the exclamation ¡miento!, with which a speaker corrects what was just said.^[3][26]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mentir
3. ^ 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. mentir
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. mentir
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2198
6. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 545
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4279
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 458
9. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 586
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. mentir
12. ^ 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. mentir
13. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 347
14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 297
15. ^ a b c d 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. mentir
16. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 489
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 567
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 503
19. ^ 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. 695
20. ^ 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. mentir
21. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. mentir
22. ^ 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, p. s.v. mentir
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. mentir
24. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 171
25. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1130
26. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mentir
27. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. mentir