notario

Forms

notario m (plural notarios, feminine notaria, feminine plural notarias)^[1] Old Spanish texts also have notari and, in the Cancionero de Baena, nontario.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin notārius (“shorthand writer, secretary”), first recorded in the first half of the 13th century.^[4][5][1][6] The Latin noun is formed from nota (“mark, sign; shorthand character”) with the suffix -ārius, and first meant a writer of shorthand or a stenographer.^[7][1][8] In Late and Medieval Latin it came to mean a clerk in the imperial offices and then a scribe of the papal and royal chanceries.^[9][8] Vox links it to the verb notō (“to mark, to write”), itself derived from the noun.^[6]

The same Latin word is Catalan notari, Italian notaio, Old French notarie and French notaire;^[10][11][12] English notary and Basque notari come from it too.^[10][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates notario to 1220–1250.^[4][10] Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora calls a gambling but devout cleric el mi notario, “my notary”, in the words of the Virgin, without making his office clear.^[13] The Old Spanish Textual Archive first has it in 1254, in the Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas of Alfonso X's court, where the word means a scribe who attests documents.^[14][15]

Semantic evolution

For centuries the word lived beside escribano.^[16][17] Covarrubias in 1611 defines the notario as the public scribe who writes down and attests judicial acts, and adds that the name once meant those who wrote quickly in abbreviations.^[16] Autoridades separated the two offices: the escribanos dealt with secular business and the notarios with that of the Church.^[17][18] It also gave the sense “one who writes what another dictates” and the proverb Entre dos amigos, un notario y dos testigos, which teaches that formal guarantees do not insult a friendship.^[17]

From 1869 the Academy's dictionary describes the modern office: the public official authorised to attest contracts and other extrajudicial acts according to the law, with the older senses marked as historical.^[19][20] The DLE now also uses the word for a person who records events he witnesses, a chronicler.^[5][21] In the Americas the notario público and the notario apostólico appear in documents from 1527 on.^[22]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record, as Corominas dates it.^[4]
• 1246–1252 – Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora calls a cleric the Virgin's notario.^[13]
• 1254 – the word appears in the Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas.^[14][15]
• 1527 – first record in the Americas, a notario público in Nicaragua.^[22]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it as English “a notarie”.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as the public scribe who attests judicial acts.^[16]
• 1734 – Autoridades distinguishes the ecclesiastical notarios from the secular escribanos.^[17]
• 1869 – the Academy defines the modern public official who attests contracts.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. notarius”.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A notary: a public official empowered to attest contracts, wills and other extrajudicial acts according to the law: Firmaron la compraventa ante un notario de Sevilla.^[5][24][1]
2. A person who records the events he or she witnesses; a chronicler.^[5][21]
3. (historical) A scribe who did the work of an escribano and attested documents and other acts.^[5][24]
4. (obsolete) A writer of shorthand; one who wrote at dictation, an amanuensis.^[5][24][17]

Word family

• notaría
• notariado
• notarial

Related words

• notar
• nota
• protonotario
• escribano

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. notario
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 310
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nota
5. ^ 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. notario
6. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. notario
9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b c 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. 489
11. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 95
12. ^ a b Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. notari
13. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 524
14. ^ 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. notario
15. ^ 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. notario
16. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1167
17. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. notario
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 602
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 541
20. ^ 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. 743
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. notario
22. ^ 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. notario
23. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 178
24. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos