mes

Forms

mes m (plural meses)^[1] Old Spanish texts also have the spellings mese, mense and mees.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mēnsis (“month”).^[3][1][4][5] Latin /ns/ was reduced to /s/, as in mesa from mēnsa and peso from pēnsum.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese mês, Galician mes, Asturian mes, Catalan mes, Occitan mes, French mois, Italian mese and Romansh mais.^[4][1][7]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *mēns- (“month, moon”) and Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s (“moon, month”), probably from *meh₁- (“to measure”), since the moon's phases measured time.^[8][1] Its cognates include Ancient Greek μήν (mḗn, “month”), Old Irish mí (“month”) and Lithuanian mėnuo (“moon, month”), and the English word month.^[8][1] In the oldest Indo-European languages the name of the month was the name of the moon.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the plural, in the siege of a town: Nueve meses complidos, sabet, sobr'ella yaz “for nine full months, know it, he lay before it”.^[10][11] The Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180) dates the birth of Christ in achest mes de december “in this month of December”.^[10] The DTME gives 1161 as the first record in a Spanish document.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's astronomical works speak of the Arabic, Christian and Egyptian months, each with its own calendar.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 records that estar la mujer en el mes meant being in the ninth month of pregnancy, and calls those who serve por meses fickle servants.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the senses “menstruation” and “a servant's monthly wage”, and the later editions the period from one date to the same date of the next month and the astronomical months, such as the mes anomalístico.^[15][16]

Regional names for particular months are many: in the Canaries and Asturias el mes de los santos is November, and in Asturias el mes de la yerba is July.^[17][18] Several Latin American countries call the month of their independence el mes de la patria.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[10][5]
• 1161 – first record in a dated document, according to the DTME.^[12]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos: in achest mes de december.^[10]
• 1254–1260 – Alfonso X's astronomical tables name the mes arábigo, the month of the Arabic calendar.^[13]
• 1495 – first record of the compound tremesino “three months old”.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija defines it as the twelfth part of the year, Latin mensis.^[20]
• 1525 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin mensis, from metior “to measure”.^[14]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “menstruation” and “monthly wage”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin mensis.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. month: each of the twelve parts into which the year is divided: Nos casamos en el mes de abril.^[3][1]
2. The period from a given day to the same date of the following month: Volveré dentro de un mes.^[3][23]
3. menstruation.^[3][23]
4. A month's salary or payment.^[3][23]
5. (astronomy) Any of the astronomical months, such as the mes anomalístico or the mes lunar.^[3][23]

Word family

• mesada
• sietemesino

Related words

• mensual
• menstruo
• semestre
• trimestre
• Latin mēnsis
• English month

Usage notes

Spanish writes the names of the months in lower case: el mes de mayo.^[3] In the Dominican Republic el mes alone can mean the ninth month of pregnancy.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. mes
3. ^ 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. mes
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4270
5. ^ 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. 419
6. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 491
7. ^ 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, 611
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. mois
10. ^ 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. mes
11. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 348
12. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. mes
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. mes
14. ^ 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. 1132
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 553
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 570
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. mes
18. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. mes
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. mes
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 380
21. ^ 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. mes
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 697
23. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mes
24. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. mes