merecer

Forms

merecer (first-person singular present merezco, first-person singular preterite merecí, past participle merecido)^[1] Old Spanish wrote it with ⟨sc⟩ or ⟨ç⟩: meresce, merescen, mereçe.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *merēscere, an inchoative verb formed on Latin mereō (“to earn, deserve”) with the suffix that gives Spanish -ecer.^[3][4][1][5] The Academy's 1884 and 1899 editions derived it directly from the deponent form of the Latin verb.^[6][7]

The same Vulgar Latin verb is Portuguese merecer and Catalan merèixer.^[8][9] In the oldest Catalan texts Old Catalan merir, from the simple Latin verb, was more frequent.^[9][10]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *merē- (“to earn”); de Vaan tentatively reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *(s)mr-eh₁- (“to earn”), and compares Celtic words for “death, fate”.^[11] Latin derived from it meritum (“service, reward”) and meretrīx (“courtesan”), the sources of Spanish mérito and meretriz.^[11][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has a speaker tell Rachel and Vidas: yo que esto vos gané bien merecía calças “I, who won this for you, well deserved a pair of breeches”.^[12][3] Menéndez Pidal notes that the Cid also uses merecer algo a uno for “to repay someone for something”: aun vea el ora que uos meresca dos tanto “may I yet see the hour when I repay you twice over”.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

Alongside “to deserve”, medieval texts used merecer for “to obtain, achieve”: Alfonso X's Estoria de España has tu meresciste dexar la locura de los ydolos “you attained leaving the madness of idols”.^[15] The Diccionario de Autoridades still recorded “to obtain” as an occasional sense and added “to be worth” (esso no merece cien reales).^[16] The DLE now marks “to obtain” as obsolete.^[4]

The Academy added the intransitive “to do good works, be worthy of reward” and the phrase merecer bien de alguien “to earn someone's gratitude” by 1884.^[6] In the Canary island of La Palma, no merece means “it isn't worth it”.^[17] Argentine slang once used the verb for “to have sex”, especially of a young girl.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[12][3]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes speaks of the penalty the market inspector mereçe “deserves”.^[12]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for “to obtain”.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin mereor.^[18]
• 1527 – first record in the Americas, from Nicaragua.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin mereor and records tener uno su merecido “to get one's deserts”.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the intransitive sense and merecer bien de uno.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a person: to deserve, become worthy of reward or punishment (also reflexive): Después de tanto esfuerzo, te mereces unas vacaciones.^[4][1]
2. Of a thing: to be worth, have a certain value or esteem: Esa casa no merece lo que piden por ella.^[4]
3. (obsolete) To obtain or achieve what one strives for.^[4][15]
4. (intransitive) To do good works; to be worthy of reward.^[4]
5. (Argentina, vulgar, slang, dated) To have sex.^[1]

Word family

• merecedor
• merecimiento
• desmerecer
• merecido

Related words

• emérito
• Latin mereō
• Portuguese merecer

Usage notes

The present stem has ⟨zc⟩ before a and o (merezco, merezca), as Autoridades already noted for verbs in -ecer.^[1][16] Set phrases are merecer la pena “to be worth the trouble” and merecer bien de alguien “to earn someone's gratitude”.^[1][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. merecer
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. merecer
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. merecer
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. merecer
6. ^ 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. 696
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 653
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2200
9. ^ a b 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, 606
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4293
11. ^ 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, p. s.v. mereō
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. merecer
13. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. merecer
14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 297
15. ^ a b c 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. merecer
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 550
17. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. merecer
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 379
19. ^ 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. merecer
20. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1131