mercar

Forms

mercar (first-person singular present merco, first-person singular preterite merqué, past participle mercado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mercor (“to buy, trade”), a popular word.^[2][3][4][1] The Portuguese dictionaries start from an active Vulgar Latin form *mercare, for the classical deponent verb.^[5][6] The same verb is Portuguese mercar, Galician mercar, Asturian mercar, Aragonese mercar and Catalan mercar.^[5][7][8][1]

The Latin verb is formed from merx (“goods, merchandise”).^[9][1] Wiktionary reports that de Vaan connects it with the god's name Mercurius and supposes an Etruscan origin for both; its etymology remains uncertain.^[1] The same family gave mercado, from mercātus (“trade, market”), and merced.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old Spanish text archive's first record is the Fuero de Alcalá de Henares, in a manuscript of 1223.^[11] The CDH, which dates that charter c. 1235, quotes the rule for anyone who comes to Alcalá a mercar “to buy” without honest measures for oil or weights for wax.^[12] Corominas's first date is about 1250.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose mercar means “to buy” and also “to trade”, and once “to deal with people”: bien mierca ell omne con el torpe “a man deals well with the fool”.^[13] Nebrija (c. 1495) gives Latin emo and mercor.^[14] Covarrubias (1611) defines it simply as comprar.^[15] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) records the proverb bien merca a quien no le dicen hombre bestia.^[16]

The Academy's dictionaries gave it as a plain synonym of comprar from 1817.^[17] Domínguez (1847) already marked it as old.^[18] Today it is little used outside rural speech and informal registers, where it often means buying at a market or fair.^[19][20][21] In Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador it means buying the daily groceries.^[22]

Timeline

• 1223 – the Fuero de Alcalá de Henares, the first record in the Old Spanish text archive.^[11][12]
• c. 1250 – Corominas's first date for the verb.^[2]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses mercar for buying small things with coin.^[13]
• 1494 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo: yo merqué estas caravelas.^[23]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin emo and mercor.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin mercor.^[15]
• 1847 – Domínguez marks the verb as old.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology Del lat. mercari.^[24]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To buy, acquire for money; a synonym of comprar, now rural or informal: Mercó dos ovejas en la feria del pueblo.^[3][19][1]
2. (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador) To buy the day's groceries for a household.^[22]

Related words

• mercado
• mercader
• mercancía
• merced
• Latin merx
• Portuguese mercar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mercado
3. ^ a b 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. mercar
4. ^ 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. 423
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2196
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mercar
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. mercar
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. mercar
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. merced
11. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
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. mercar
13. ^ 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. mercar
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 379
15. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1130
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 549
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 568
18. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1184
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mercar
20. ^ Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 536
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. mercar
22. ^ 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. mercar
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. mercar
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 696