nutricio

Forms

nutricio (feminine nutricia, masculine plural nutricios, feminine plural nutricias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nūtrīcius (“of a nurse; foster-father”), a learned word first recorded at the beginning of the 17th century.^[2][3][1] Bénaben compares the inherited nodriza “wet nurse”, which goes back to the base of the Latin adjective.^[4][2]

The Latin adjective was formed from nūtrīx (“child's nurse”) (or from the verb nūtrīcō) with the suffix -ius; it meant “of or like a nurse”, and as a noun “foster-father, guardian”.^[5][1] De Vaan derives the noun from *(s)noutrī and Proto-Indo-European *sneu-tr-ih₂- (“female nurser”), with a cognate in प्रस्नौति (prasnauti, “to drip, release liquids”); the verb nūtriō (“to suckle, nourish”), the source of nutrir, was derived from the older form of the noun, before it took its final consonant.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC dates the word to the early 17th century without quoting the text.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as “what serves to feed or nourish” and noted that physicians often spoke of el suco nutricio “the nourishing juice”; its quotation is from an anatomy textbook: partes nutricias, que estaban destinadas a nutrir aquel miembro “nourishing parts, which were meant to feed that limb”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Terreros gave French, Latin and Italian equivalents for the same sense, “that feeds and nourishes”.^[8] The Academy kept the physicians' suco nutricio until 1869 and replaced it with jugo nutricio in 1884, when it also gave the etymology.^[9][10] The modern dictionaries add a second sense, “that provides food for another person”, and Moliner marks the first as literary.^[3][11][12] In medicine it describes a blood vessel that brings nutrients to a tissue.^[13] Figurative uses are common in the 20th century, such as a tierra nutricia in Cuba in 1974.^[14]

Timeline

• Early 17th century – first record, according to the BDELC.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the physicians' phrase suco nutricio.^[7]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros defines it as “that feeds and nourishes”.^[8]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the Latin etymology and the example jugo nutricio.^[10]
• 1927 – first record in Boyd-Bowman's American material, in Buenos Aires.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) nourishing, nutritious (nutritivo): el poder nutricio de la leche.^[3][11][1]
2. That provides food or sustenance for another person: la familia nutricia del huérfano.^[3][12]
3. (anatomy) Of a blood vessel: carrying nutrients to a tissue: una arteria nutricia.^[13]

Related words

• nutrir
• nodriza
• nutrición
• nutritivo
• nutrimento
• Latin nūtrīx

Usage notes

The DEMel files an Old Spanish notriço of a document of 1141 from the Ebro valley under this lemma.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nutrir
3. ^ a b c d 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. nutricio
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. nutricio
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 694
8. ^ 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, 683
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 543
10. ^ 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. 746
11. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nutricio
12. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. nutricio
13. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. nutricio
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. nutricio
15. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. nutricio