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militar

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word militar

militar1 to serve as a soldier

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1376–1396 Juan Fernández de Heredia, translation of Orosius
Borrowed from
Latin milito
Ultimate origin
Latin mīles
Etymology tree of militar1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin mīles
Latin mīlitō
English militate
Italian militare
Spanish militar
From the same root · militar1
Latin commilitium ← mīles
Latin mīlitāris ← mīles
Latin mīlitārius ← mīles
Latin mīlitia ← mīles
Latin commīlitō ← mīlitō

Pronunciation

  • /miliˈtaɾ/, [mi.liˈt̪aɾ][1]

Forms

militar (first-person singular present milito, first-person singular preterite milité, past participle militado)[1]

Etymology

The word for “to serve as a soldier” is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin mīlitāre (“to serve as a soldier”).[2][1][3] Corominas dates it to 1490, and its present participle militante to about 1440.[4] The CDH has earlier examples: the Aragonese translations of Juan Fernández de Heredia (1376–1396) speak of horsemen who had served under Alexander, and DICCA-XV, which gives 1417 for its own corpus, reports the same early date from the CORDE.[5][6]

The Latin verb is formed on mīles (“soldier”);[1][7] Gómez de Silva mentions a possible link with ὅμιλος (hómilos, “crowd, throng”), so that a soldier would be “one of the throng”.[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Fernández de Heredia's translation of Orosius the silver-shielded soldiers are caualleros qui auian militado diuso de Alixandre “horsemen who had served under Alexander”, the literal military sense.[5]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 renders milito with “to be at war”, and the Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) defined militar as “to serve in war, to train in soldiering”, quoting Coloma's Guerras de Flandes.[6][8] Terreros added a legal and scholastic sense, “to tell in favour of”, as in an argument that milita por mí; the Academy has listed it since 1817 as a metaphorical use, of a reason or circumstance that supports a claim.[9][10][2] The Léxico hispanoamericano records both senses in the Americas around 1600: soldiers militando in Lima in 1600, and a difficulty that milita in Quito in 1604.[11] The sense “to be an active member of a party or movement” is the main modern one.[2][1]

Timeline

  • 1376–1396 – Fernández de Heredia's translations use militar “to serve as a soldier”.[5]
  • 1417 – first record in DICCA-XV's corpus of the Crown of Aragon.[6]
  • c. 1440 – the participle militante, as in Iglesia militante “the Church militant”.[4][12]
  • 1490 – the date the BDELC gives for the verb.[4]
  • 1604 – in Quito, a difficulty milita “applies, tells”.[11]
  • 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as serving in war.[8]
  • 1817 – the Academy adds the metaphorical sense of a reason that supports something.[10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To serve in war (guerra); to serve as a soldier.[2][1]
  2. To be a professional soldier, to follow the military life (milicia).[2]
  3. To be an active member of a political party or movement: Militó en el sindicato durante veinte años.[2][1][13]
  4. Of a reason or circumstance, to tell in favour of a claim or plan: Varias razones militan a favor del proyecto.[2]

Word family

  • militante
  • militancia

militar2 military; soldier

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1350 after 1350, translation of the Historia de Jerusalem abreviada of Jacobo de Vitriaco
Borrowed from
Latin militaris
Ultimate origin
Latin mīles
Etymology tree of militar2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin mīles
Latin mīlitāris
English military
French militaire
Italian militare
Spanish militar
From the same root · militar2
Latin commilitium ← mīles
Latin mīlitārius ← mīles
Latin mīlitia ← mīles
Latin mīlitō ← mīles
Latin mīlitāriter ← mīlitāris
English paramilitary ← military

Pronunciation

  • /miliˈtaɾ/, [mi.liˈt̪aɾ][1]

Forms

militar m or f (masculine and feminine plural militares)[1]

Etymology

The word for “military” and “soldier” is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin mīlitāris (“of soldiers or war”).[2][1][4] Corominas dates the adjective to about 1440 and the noun to 1734.[4] The CDH has it a century earlier, in a phrase meaning “military discipline” in a translation made after 1350, and DICCA-XV reports the CORDE's date of 1350.[5][6]

The Latin adjective is formed with the suffix -āris on mīles (“soldier”).[1][14] In Medieval Latin it also meant “knightly” and “of a vassal”.[15] The same Latin adjective is French militaire, recorded from about 1355, and Italian militare.[16][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first CDH record that is not a later copy is the translation of Jacobo de Vitriaco's history of Jerusalem, made after 1350: the Christian troops advance ordenadas las azes segund la diçiplina militar “with the ranks drawn up according to military discipline”.[5] The 1385 Gran crónica de España of Fernández de Heredia already has the plural militares.[5]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) noted that the word could be a verb or a noun, as in exercicio militar, and connected the military orders with it.[18] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) gives the adjective and, as a second sense, a person who follows soldiering.[8] From 1817 the Academy also recorded an adjective for lay dress of the French kind, the coat called casaca; the DLE now labels it obsolete.[10][2] The opposition to civil entered the definition in 1869.[19] The noun applies to men and women alike.[2][1] mili, short for servicio militar, is the colloquial name of military service: hacer la mili.[20]

Timeline

  • after 1350 – diçiplina militar in the translation of Jacobo de Vitriaco's history of Jerusalem.[5]
  • c. 1440 – the date the BDELC gives for the adjective.[4]
  • 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary renders militaris as “a thing of war”.[6]
  • 1549 – first record from the Americas, ejercicio militar in Santo Domingo.[11]
  • 1734 – the noun “one who follows soldiering”, in the Diccionario de Autoridades.[8][4]
  • 1884 – the derivative militarismo is first recorded.[4]
  • 1925 – militarista is first recorded.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. military: of the armed forces or of war, as opposed to civil.[2][1]
  2. (obsolete) Of lay dress: with a casaca (frock coat).[2]

Noun

  1. A soldier, a member of a country's armed forces: Dos militares vigilaban la entrada.[2][1]

Word family

  • militarada
  • militarismo
  • militarista
  • militarizar
  • mili

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. militar
  3. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 461
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. militar
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. militar
  6. ^ a b c d e 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. militar
  7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. militar
  8. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 569
  9. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 586
  10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 574
  11. ^ a b c 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. melitar
  12. ^ 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. 427
  13. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. militar
  14. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mīlitāris
  15. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. militaris
  16. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. militaire
  17. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 355
  18. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1137
  19. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 510
  20. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. militar

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Militar.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/militar. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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