misa

Forms

misa f (plural misas)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing borrowed from Late Latin missa (“dismissal; mass”), recorded from the 4th century.^[2][3][1][4] The Latin word is the feminine past participle of Latin mittō (“to let go, send”), used as a noun.^[5][6] It is taken from the closing words of the service, ⟨ite, missa est⟩, with which the faithful were sent away;^[7] Corominas thinks that the participle referred to the offering sent up to God.^[2][5] In Medieval Latin it meant the dismissal of the faithful, a closing prayer, any divine office and the Mass.^[7]

The same word is Portuguese missa, Catalan missa, French messe and Italian messa.^[8][4] It passed into Basque meza.^[4]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *meitō, from Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to exchange”).^[1] De Vaan explains the senses “give” and then “let go, send” from an original “exchange”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the first record: the Cid promises to have a thousand masses sung, que faga ý cantar mill missas.^[10][2] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–1250) is the earliest record in a contemporary copy.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish wrote it missa, as did Covarrubias and Autoridades; the DEMel also lists misa and the agglutinated amissa.^[11][12][13] In Alfonso X's prose it is the Catholic Mass, with the verbs cantar and decir, and also the order of priesthood: a clérigo de missa is an ordained priest.^[14] The second sense survives only in that phrase and is now out of use.^[3] Autoridades called it a purely Latin word.^[13] The musical sense, a setting of the parts of the Mass, is modern.^[3][15]

The Americas have many local names of masses: misa de aguinaldo before Christmas in Puerto Rico and Venezuela, misa de mes a month after a death in several countries.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid.^[10][2]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the first record in a contemporary copy.^[10]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative misal is first recorded.^[2]
• 1256–1300 – the Siete Partidas fix the hours for singing masses.^[14]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria uses ordenar de missa “to ordain as a priest”.^[14]
• 1535 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the Mass as the bloodless sacrifice of the New Testament.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Catholicism) The Mass: the celebration in which the priest renews at the altar the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine: Los domingos va a misa con sus abuelos.^[3][1]
2. (music) A musical setting of the texts of the Mass.^[3][15]
3. (obsolete) The order of priesthood (presbiterado), in ordenado de misa.^[3][14]

Word family

• misal

Related words

• meter
• Latin missa

Usage notes

After a verb it is used without the article: ir a misa, oír misa, decir misa.^[15] Set phrases include misa cantada, a mass sung by one priest, and misa concelebrada, said by several priests together.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. misa
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. misa
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. misa
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. misa
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. misa
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. missa
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5610
9. ^ 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. mittō
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. misa
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. misa
12. ^ 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. 1138
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 578
14. ^ a b c d 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. misa
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. misa
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. misa
17. ^ 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. misa