multiplicar

Forms

multiplicar (first-person singular present multiplico, first-person singular preterite multipliqué, past participle multiplicado)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin multiplicō (“to increase, multiply”),^[2][1][3] The Latin verb is formed from multiplex (“manifold, of many folds”).^[4][5] That adjective combines multus (“much, many”) with the element of plicō (“to fold”).^[1][5][6]

The learned verb displaced the inherited Old Spanish muchiguar and amuchiguar, which continue Vulgar Latin *multificāre.^[1] Corominas dates both to about 1250, in the Setenario, and notes that Nebrija already marked the simple verb as old.^[7] The same Latin verb gave Catalan multiplicar, French multiplier and Italian moltiplicare.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the verb to the 15th century, from a medieval Bible translation and Nebrija.^[7][3] The CDH and the DEMel take it back to the early 13th century, to the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, which survives in a 13th-century manuscript: Fyjos de Israel crescieron e multiplicaron “the children of Israel grew and multiplied”.^[10][11] There it has the biblical sense of increasing in number by generation.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The arithmetical sense is almost as old: Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas (1254) tells the reader to multiply a remainder by thirty, beside the general sense of matters growing in number.^[12] In the Americas the verb was used from 1538 of the increase of livestock and crops, and by 1562 the rules of arithmetic taught in Puebla were adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.^[13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as increasing the number of individuals of a species, often used intransitively of breeding, and gave the arithmetical sense separately.^[14] Terreros added the biblical creced y multiplicaos “be fruitful and multiply”.^[9] The Academy's 1884 edition gave the etymology and, for algebra and arithmetic, named the multiplicando, the multiplicador and the producto.^[15] Today's dictionary adds a sense in mechanics, of gears that raise the turns of a wheel, and the pronominal multiplicarse “to work hard, to be everywhere at once”.^[2][16]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has multiplicaron “they multiplied”, of the children of Israel.^[11][10]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas uses the verb in calculation.^[12][17]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Latin multiplico as its equivalent.^[18][19]
• 1538 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, of the increase of sheep, pigs and crops.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin multum and plico.^[6]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the breeding and the arithmetical senses.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and defines the terms of the operation.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To multiply, increase the number or amount of things of the same kind; also intransitive and pronominal, especially of living things that breed: Las palomas se multiplicaron en la plaza.^[2][1][16]
2. (arithmetic) To find the product of two factors, adding one to itself as many times as the other has units: Multiplica siete por nueve.^[2][1]
3. (mathematics) To carry out this operation with algebraic expressions.^[2]
4. (mechanics) To raise the number of turns of a rotating part by a gear in which it has a wheel with fewer teeth than the one driving it.^[2][16]
5. (pronominal) To take great pains, attending to many things at once: Durante la fiesta, la anfitriona se multiplicó.^[2][16]

Word family

• multiplicación
• multiplicador
• multiplicando
• multiplicativo
• tabla de multiplicar

Related words

• múltiple
• múltiplo
• mucho
• Latin multiplicō

Usage notes

Tabla de multiplicar is the multiplication table.^[1] Speaking aloud, the sign × is read multiplicado por or simply por.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. multiplicar
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mucho
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. multiplicō
5. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
6. ^ 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. 1154
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 178
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 477
9. ^ a b 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, 637
10. ^ 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. multiplicar
11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. multiplicar
12. ^ 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. multiplicar
13. ^ 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. multiplicar
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 629
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 726
16. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. multiplicar
17. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. multiplicar
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 384
19. ^ 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. multiplicar