navidad

Forms

navidad f (plural navidades)^[1] Old Spanish texts write nauidat, nauydat, navidat, nabidat and nauidad, among other spellings.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin nātīvitās (“birth”); Old Spanish nadvidad and navidat are its oldest forms.^[3][1][4][5] The BDELC and the Academy's dictionary from 1884 describe it as a shortening of natividad, while DICCA-XV explains it as a semi-learned descendant of the Latin word with haplology of *nadividad, and VOX calls it a popular, inherited word.^[4][6][7][8] The learned doublet, first recorded about 1440, kept the Latin form.^[4][9][1] Medieval Latin used the word, in the phrase “nativity of the Lord”, for the birth of Christ and for Christmas.^[10]

The Latin noun is built on nātīvus (“natural, original”) with the suffix -tās, and that adjective on the participle of nāscor (“to be born”).^[1][11] De Vaan traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *ǵnh₁-sk-e/o- (“to be born”).^[12]

Elsewhere the word is mostly learned: Portuguese natividade, Catalan nativitat, French nativité and Italian natività.^[1][13][14] Houaiss records Old Galician-Portuguese navidad in 13th-century texts beside the later learned form.^[13] French borrowed its word about 1120, and it displaced the popular doublet Old French naïté.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH, the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), uses it for a birth in general: the angel nuncio la navidat de so fijo Sant Juan baptista “announced the birth of his son Saint John the Baptist”.^[15] The BDELC dates the form nadvidad to 1205.^[4] In the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) it is already Christmas as a date for payments: si desdel mes de agosto fasta la nauidad non fuere pagada “if it is not paid between August and Christmas”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X it means the Nativity of Christ, the day on which it is celebrated, and the feast: Christians should make offerings at least at the three great feasts, en la nauidat & en pascua mayor & en cinquaesma “at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost”.^[16] Nebrija renders Navidad and Pascua de Navidad with Latin natalis christianus.^[7] Christmas and Saint John's Day were the usual terms of payment, as Autoridades notes, and a 1556 text from Puebla speaks of paying para el día de Nabidad.^[17][18]

By the 17th century the plural also meant years of age: Autoridades quotes tengo veinte y tres San Juanes, tres años y quatro lustros, con veinte y tres Navidades.^[17] The Academy recorded the proverb no alabes ni desalabes hasta siete navidades “do not praise or blame until seven Christmases have passed”, advising to judge only after long experience.^[19][20] The DLE now defines the feast, the day, the season from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, and, colloquially and mostly in the plural, a year of a person's age.^[3] In Colombia it is also the name of a shrub.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) has navidat “birth”.^[15]
• 1205 – the form nadvidad.^[4][5]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes uses nauidad for Christmas as a date of payment.^[15]
• 1219 – the Anales toledanos have nauidad.^[2]
• 1220–1250 – the BDELC's date for navidad.^[4]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for the Nativity and for the feast.^[16]
• c. 1440 – first record of the learned doublet natividad.^[4]
• 1537 – first record from the Americas, in Cartagena.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the plural in the sense “years of age”.^[17]
• 1817 – the Academy records the proverb no alabes ni desalabes hasta siete navidades.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy calls it a contraction of natividad.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The Nativity, the birth of Jesus Christ.^[22][1]
2. Christmas: the yearly Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ.^[3][1]
3. The day on which it is celebrated, 25 December: Este año pasaremos la Navidad en casa de los abuelos.^[3][8]
4. Christmas time, from Christmas Eve to Epiphany (also in the plural): Vuelve a su pueblo todas las Navidades.^[3][1]
5. (colloquial, mostly in the plural) A year of a person's age: Mi abuela ya cuenta ochenta navidades.^[3][23]
6. (Colombia) A shrub up to three metres tall, also called pastora.^[21]
7. (rare) A Christmas present.^[1]

Word family

• navideño

Related words

• natividad
• nacer
• nativo
• Latin nātīvitās

Usage notes

The feast and the day are usually written with a capital, Navidad, and so is the season, often in the plural Navidades; the greeting is ¡Feliz Navidad!.^[23][8][1] Navidad is also the name of a city in Chile and a rare surname.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. navidad
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. navidad
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nacer
5. ^ a b 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. 474
6. ^ 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. 734
7. ^ 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. navidad
8. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. navidad
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. nativitas
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. natividade
14. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
15. ^ 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. navidad
16. ^ 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. navidad
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 654
18. ^ 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. navidad
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 596
20. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 746
21. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. navidad
22. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. navidad
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. navidad