noble

Forms

noble m or f (masculine and feminine plural nobles)^[1] Old Spanish also had nobre and nuble;^[2][3][4] Judeo-Spanish has novle.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nōbilis (“known, famous, noble”).^[5][6][1] The BDELC dates it to 1184.^[5] Old Spanish texts of the 13th century also write nobre.^[3][7]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese nobre, Catalan noble, French noble and Italian nobile.^{[8][9][10][1]} Nascentes derives the Portuguese word from a form with ⟨bl⟩.^[11]

The Latin adjective is formed from nōscō (“to get to know”) with the suffix -bilis, and first meant “knowable”, then “well known, famous”; it had an older form gnōbilis.^[12][13][1] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”).^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in the Cortes of León of 1208, where the king calls himself muy nobre Rey de Leon “most noble King of León”.^[3] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) has a heading on the noble omne who commits violence.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word was used of kings and of people of high rank, and Alfonso X's Lapidario also applied it to things that excel in their kind, such as a precious stone.^[7] Nebrija glossed it “known by fame”.^[15] Covarrubias wrote that the title was once given to the kings of Castile, and that in his day a hombre noble was a hidalgo of good birth.^[16]

The Academy's dictionaries from 1817 recorded noble as a title of honour given by the King of Aragon, which replaced ricohombre in 1390.^[17] The 1869 edition added the noun for an old gold coin.^[18] The modern dictionaries add the moral sense, honest and generous, the use for loyal animals such as the horse or the dog, and in chemistry the sense “inert”, as in gas noble.^[6][19][20]

Timeline

• 1184 – first record, according to Corominas.^[5]
• 1208 – the Cortes of León use the form nobre.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative nobleza is first recorded.^[5]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of el noble rey don Alfonso and of a muy noble stone.^[7]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua, in the title Muy Noble Señor.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin nobilis, as if noscibilis, “one who makes himself known”.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy records the Aragonese title of honour.^[17]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the noun for an old gold coin.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. illustrious, distinguished, generous (generoso).^[6]
2. Holding a title of nobility by inheritance or by grant of the sovereign; also as a noun, a nobleman: los nobles y el clero.^[6][1]
3. Outstanding in its kind; excelling the others of its class: maderas nobles.^[6][19]
4. honourable, worthy of esteem, as opposed to base: un gesto noble.^[6]
5. Of a person or an animal: loyal, without malice: un perro noble.^[19][20]
6. (chemistry) Chemically inert or hard to attack, as helium and argon or platinum and gold.^[6]

Noun

1. (historical) A Spanish gold coin, two carats finer than the escudo.^[6]

Word family

• nobleza
• noblote
• ennoblecer
• innoble

Related words

• conocer
• Latin nōbilis
• Portuguese nobre

Usage notes

The superlative is nobilísimo, from the Latin stem.^[5] Set phrases include gas noble and metal noble.^[6][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. noble
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. noble
4. ^ a b Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. novle
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. noble
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. noble
7. ^ a b c 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. noble
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2346
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. noble
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. noble
11. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. nobre
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. noble
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 386
16. ^ 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. 1165
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 600
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 538
19. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. noble
20. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. noble
21. ^ 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. noble