obediencia

Forms

obediencia f (plural obediencias)^[1] Old Spanish texts have obediencia, obediençia, obedençia, obidiençia and obbediencia.^[2] Documents from the Americas of the 1530s–40s write ovidencia, obidencia and ovidençia.^[3]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin oboedientia (“obedience”).^[4][5][1] The Latin noun is formed from oboediēns (“obedient”) with the suffix -ia.^[6][1] That is the present participle of oboediō (“to obey”), derived from audiō (“to hear”).^[4][7]

By its form the Latin verb is ob- with the verb “to hear”, which would regularly have given a form with ⟨ū⟩.^[1] Wiktionary reports the view that the ⟨oe⟩ is a false archaism, encouraged by the word's use in the law courts.^[1] The same Latin noun gave Portuguese obediência, Catalan obediència, French obédience and Italian obbedienza.^{[8][9][10][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates obediencia 1220–1250, the period of Berceo.^[4] The CDH's first hit is in Berceo's Vida de San Millán, known from an 18th-century copy; the Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, in a late 13th-century manuscript, has asmó de ferse monge, e fer obedïencia “he resolved to become a monk and make his obedience”.^[11] The first hit in a contemporary manuscript is Herman the German's translation of the Psalter (c. 1240–1272), where God asks of man not sacrifice but obediencia.^[11] From the start the word belonged to monastic and religious language.^[11][2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose has the general sense of obeying, the precept of a religious superior, and an office held in a community by order of the superiors.^[12] These match the senses of Medieval Latin, where the word meant monastic discipline, the vow of obedience and a task assigned to a monk or canon.^[13] In the Americas it was used from 1532 of submission to the Crown and to religious profession.^[3]

The Diccionario de Autoridades called it a purely Latin word and gave the senses of subjection to a superior, a superior's order in religious houses, and a friar's licence to preach or travel.^[14] The Academy's 1817 edition added the office held in a community, the figurative docility of animals, obediencia ciega “blind obedience” and phrases such as dar la obediencia “to submit to someone”.^[15] The legal obediencia debida, obedience to a superior that exempts from liability for an offence, is in today's dictionary.^[5]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Corominas's date for the word, in Berceo.^[4]
• c. 1240–1272 – Herman the German's Psalter, the first hit in a contemporary manuscript.^[11]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas.^[12][16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin obedientia and obsequium.^[17][7]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Panama.^[3]
• 1570 – first record of the derivative desobediencia.^[4][18]
• 1817 – the Academy records obediencia ciega and the figurative use of animals.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. obedience, the act of obeying: Exigía obediencia a toda la tropa.^[5][1][19]
2. The quality of being obedient; an obedient attitude.^[19][20]
3. (religion) In the regular orders, a precept of the superior.^[5][19]
4. (religion) In the regular orders, the superior's leave for a member to preach or travel, or an assignment to another convent.^[5][19]
5. (religion) In the regular orders and congregations, an office in the community held by order of the superiors.^[5]

Word family

• desobediencia

Related words

• obedecer
• obediente
• oír
• Latin oboedientia

Usage notes

Common phrases are obediencia ciega, obedience given without weighing the reasons of whoever commands, and, in law, obediencia debida, obedience due to a superior in a hierarchy, a circumstance that exempts from liability for an offence.^[5][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. obediencia
3. ^ a b c 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. obediencia
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. obedecer
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. obediencia
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. oboedientia
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. obediencia
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. obediência
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. obediència
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. obédience
11. ^ 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. obediencia
12. ^ 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. obediencia
13. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. oboedientia
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 2
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 606
16. ^ 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. obediencia
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 388
18. ^ 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. 501
19. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. obediencia
20. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. obediencia