mesurar

Forms

mesurar (first-person singular present mesuro, first-person singular preterite mesuré, past participle mesurado)^[1] Old Spanish texts have the verb in forms such as mesuro, mesuraron and mesurasse.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin mēnsūrō (“to measure”).^[3][1] The Latin verb is first attested in the fourth century and was formed from mēnsūra (“measurement”), which comes from mētior (“to measure”) with the suffix -tūra.^[1][4] The DCECH, on the other hand, lists the verb as a derivative of mesura, and so did the Diccionario de Autoridades and the Academy's 1884 edition.^[5][6][7]

Spanish has the learned doublet mensurar, taken from the same Latin verb.^[1][5] The same word is Portuguese mesurar, Catalan mesurar, French mesurer and Italian misurare.^[1][8][9] Nascentes considers the Portuguese verb semi-learned.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The participle mesurado “measured, restrained” is already in the Cantar de mio Cid: fabló mio Cid bien e tan mesurado “my Cid spoke well and with such restraint”.^[11][5] The verb itself is in Berceo: in Del sacrificio de la misa (1228–1246, in an early 14th-century copy), quántas cosas devemos en ella mesurar “how many things we must consider in it”, and in the Vida de San Millán, mesuraron las vigas “they measured the beams”.^[11][12] Its first senses were thus “to measure” and “to consider”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb meant “to measure” (Alfonso X's Judizios, 1254, on what is good pora mesurar & medir tierras), “to consider, weigh up” and “to restrain oneself”.^[13] Menéndez Pidal glosses it “to survey, explore” in the Libro de Alexandre and the chronicles.^[14] Because medida took over the concrete sense of “measure”, the noun mesura kept mainly its figurative senses.^[5] The verb went the same way: Nebrija (c. 1495) has only the reflexive mesurarse, which he renders by Latin contineo and tempero.^[15] In 1526 a governor in Nicaragua told a man to mesurarse or lose his head.^[16]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined the verb as making someone serious and grave out of respect, and noted that it was mostly reflexive.^[6] The Academy's 1817 edition marks “to measure” and “to consider” as obsolete.^[17] Since 1899 its definition has been “to instil restraint” (infundir mesura).^[18][3] The DLE notes that the old sense “to measure” is still used in Ecuador.^[3][19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the participle mesurado.^[11][5]
• 1200–1233 – DEMel's earliest primary record, mesuraredes, is in a text it dates to the first third of the 13th century.^[2]
• 1228–1246 – Berceo, Del sacrificio de la misa: mesurar “to consider”.^[11]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios uses mesurar for measuring land.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records the reflexive mesurarse.^[15]
• 1526 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[16]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the verb as making someone grave and modest.^[6]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary adds the reflexive “to restrain oneself”.^[20]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it as “to instil restraint”.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To temper or restrain; to give mesura (moderation) to: Mesuró sus palabras ante el tribunal.^[3][1]
2. (transitive, obsolete; still used in Ecuador) To measure, to determine the size of.^[3][1]
3. (transitive, obsolete) To consider, to think something over.^[3][19]
4. (reflexive) mesurarse: to contain oneself (contenerse), to moderate oneself: Mesúrate con el vino esta noche.^[3][19]

Word family

• mesurado
• desmesurar

Related words

• mesura
• medir
• mensurar
• desmesura
• Latin mēnsūra
• Catalan mesurar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mesurar
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. mesurar
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 11
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, 556
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 699
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2206
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. mesurar
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mesurar
11. ^ 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. mesurar
12. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 493
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. mesurar
14. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 349
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. mesurar
16. ^ a b 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. mesurar
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 571
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 655
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mesurar
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 474