merced

Forms

merced f (plural mercedes)^[1] Old Spanish texts write merced, merçed, mercet, merçet and merce.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish merced, inherited from Latin mercēs (“pay, wages, reward”), by a semi-learned path.^[3][4][1][5] The same Latin word is Portuguese mercê, Galician mercé, Catalan mercè, Occitan mercé, French merci and Italian mercede.^[6][7][1] The Latin word is derived from merx (“merchandise”), like mercado and comercio.^[3][8][9] De Vaan traces this noun to *merk- (“trade, exchange”), also found in Faliscan and Oscan, and notes that the stem may have been borrowed from Etruscan.^[9]

In late and Christian Latin the word moved from “wages” to “favour, pity, grace”, the sense the Romance languages continue.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) Jimena kneels and begs ¡Merced, Canpeador, en ora buena fuestes nado! “Mercy, Campeador, born in a good hour!”^[12][3] The Fuero of Zorita (1218–c. 1250) has the older sense in Del gualardon del guardador dela vinna for Latin De mercede custodis vinearum “on the wages of the vineyard keeper”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From the start Old Spanish used the word for mercy and grace, for the grants that kings and lords made to their vassals, and for reward.^[13][12] Nebrija glosses it with Latin misericordia and beneficium.^[14][15] Covarrubias calls its proper sense the wages owed for work, explains darse a merced as surrendering to the enemy's will, and notes that merced was a courtesy title in Spain as señoría was in Italy.^[16] He also records the Order of Mercy, founded in Aragon by King James to ransom captives.^[17] Autoridades orders the senses wages, royal grant and any favour, with quotations from Saint Teresa.^[18]

The title vuestra merced “your grace” was shortened from the early 15th century to vuesarced, vusted, usarced and finally usted.^[19][7][6] Catalan vostè and Portuguese você come from the same phrase.^[6][20][21] Su merced still survives as an affectionate or respectful form of address in rural Chile, El Salvador and parts of Colombia.^[22] Baralt condemned a la merced de as a Gallicism for a merced de.^[23]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has ¡Merced, Canpeador!^[12][3]
• 1211 – the earliest Old Spanish text in the HSMS archive with the word.^[24]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero of Zorita uses it for a vineyard keeper's wages.^[12]
• 1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España speaks of the merçedes of noble lords.^[13]
• early 15th century – usted and its variants from vuestra merced.^[19]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: misericordia, beneficium.^[14][15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as wages and as a courtesy title.^[16]
• 1734 – Autoridades.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Latin merces.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. A reward given for work.^[4][26]
2. A grant of posts, honours, rents or titles that kings or lords give to their subjects.^[4][26]
3. A favour done to someone, even between equals: hágame la merced de sentarse.^[4][26]
4. Will or discretion, in a merced de “at the mercy of”: el barco quedó a merced de las olas.^[4][26]
5. (historical) A courtesy title for those who had no higher one: vuestra merced, su merced.^[4][26]
6. (law) The rent in a lease.^[4][26]
7. (obsolete) An expression of thanks: muchas mercedes.^[4]
8. (obsolete) mercy, pardon.^[4][26][1]

Word family

• mercedario
• usted

Related words

• mercado
• Portuguese mercê
• French merci

Usage notes

Merced a means “thanks to”.^[19] La merced de Dios was a fry-up of eggs and bacon with honey.^[4][26]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. merced
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. merced
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. merced
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. merced
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. merces
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. merced
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mercēs
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. merci
11. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
12. ^ 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. merced
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. merced
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 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. merced
16. ^ 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
17. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1131
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 549
19. ^ a b c 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. 420
20. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. vostè
21. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3528
22. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. merced
23. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 435
24. ^ 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, p. s.v. merced
25. ^ 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
26. ^ a b c d e f g h Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. merced