mutuo

Forms

mutuo (feminine mutua, masculine plural mutuos, feminine plural mutuas)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin mūtuus (“lent; reciprocal”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas treats it with the learned family of mudar, the inherited descendant of mūtō (“to change, exchange”).^[2][3] The adjective is formed from that verb with the suffix -uus.^[5][1] De Vaan derives both words from a noun *moito- “object of exchange”, perhaps *h₂moi-to-, and relates them to mūnus.^[6]

The same Latin word was taken as Portuguese mútuo, Catalan mutu and Italian mutuo.^[7][8] A derivative of it is French mutuel.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the noun, the loan contract, in Alfonso de Palencia in 1490, and the adjective “reciprocal” only in the 17th century, from Autoridades.^[2][3][10] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has it in a text of 1543.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the adjective meant first “on loan” (originally without interest) and then “reciprocal”.^[5] Autoridades (1734) quotes the adjective in consentimiento mutuo of husband and wife, and the noun from Villalobos, who explains that Spanish emprestido covers the two contracts mutuo and comodato.^[12] The 1869 Academy dictionary notes that in Roman law the mutuo bore no interest but in Spanish law it did.^[13] The first record from the Americas is from Mexico City in 1687.^[14]

Timeline

• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses the noun for a loan.^[2]
• 1543 – the first record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[11]
• 1687 – trato mutuo in a text from Mexico City.^[14]
• 1734 – Autoridades records the adjective and the legal noun.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. mutŭus”.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. mutual, reciprocal: done or felt by each of two or more people, animals or things towards the other: Se separaron de mutuo acuerdo.^[4][1]

Noun

1. (law) A loan of money, oil, grain or another fungible thing that becomes the borrower's, who must return the same quantity of the same kind on a set day.^[4][16]

Word family

• mutual
• mutualidad
• mutuamente

Related words

• mudar
• recíproco
• Latin mūtuus

Usage notes

De mutuo acuerdo “by mutual consent” is a set phrase.^[17] Moliner prefers recíproco to mutuo in adverbial phrases built with manera.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 178
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mudar
4. ^ a b c 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. mutuo
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mūtuus
6. ^ 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. mūtuus
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2314
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. mutu
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. mutuel
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 481
11. ^ a b 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. mutuo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 638
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 530
14. ^ 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. mutuo
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 729
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mutuo
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. mutuo