ocasión

Forms

ocasión f (plural ocasiones)^[1] Old Spanish texts write occasion, ocasion, ocassion and ocasyon.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin occāsiō (“opportunity, favourable moment”), taken from the accusative as a learned word.^[4][5][1][6] Vox dates the borrowing to the 12th century.^[7]

The Latin noun is formed from occīdō (“to fall, fall down, perish”) with the suffix -tiō, and that verb is itself derived from cadō (“to fall”).^[8][1][4] It first meant a falling out, a happening, and hence a fit time or opportunity.^[9][10] Corominas notes that its meaning is closer to another derivative of the same verb, accidō (“to happen”), and that in the Middle Ages the Spanish word meant “accident” and “grave harm”, in keeping with the sense “to fall dead” of the Latin verb.^[4]

Spanish has only the learned form, but Old Galician-Portuguese had popular forms such as Old Galician-Portuguese oqueijon, ocajon and cajon, and modern Portuguese still has cajão.^[6] The popular Old French achoison existed beside the learned French occasion, borrowed in 1174, and the same Latin word is inherited in Italian cagione.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy): the Cid promises the men of his estates atrégoles los cuerpos de mal e de ocasión “I guarantee their persons against harm and misfortune”.^[3][4] Menéndez Pidal glosses the word in the poem as “grave harm”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used ocasión above all for an accident or a grave misfortune: the Liber Regum says that a king of France morie por occasion “died by accident”, and the Fuero de Zorita speaks of livestock dying por fambre, o por set, o por otra occasion “of hunger, thirst or some other mishap”.^[3][11] The prose of Alfonso X already shows the modern senses “opportunity”, “cause, reason” and “danger, risk” beside “affliction, harm”.^[12] Nebrija paired it with achaque “pretext” and Latin occasio.^[13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “opportunity”, “cause” and “danger or risk”.^[14] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 marked “bodily defect or vice” as obsolete and recorded the theological terms ocasión próxima and ocasión remota.^[15] In modern use the word also names a particular time or occasion, and a bargain; proverbs include la ocasión hace al ladrón “opportunity makes the thief” and a la ocasión la pintan calva “seize the opportunity”.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses ocasión for “grave harm, misfortune”.^[3][11]
• c. 1194–1211 – the Liber Regum has morie por occasion “died by accident”.^[3]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita, the first record in a text without a later copy.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – first record of the verb ocasionar.^[4]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas uses the plural for afflictions and misfortunes.^[12]
• 1280 – the General Estoria uses it for “opportunity”.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Vocabulario gives Ocasion o achaque, Latin occasio.^[13]
• 1547 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico: alçarse sin ocasión “to rise up without cause”.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades derives it from Latin occasio.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the theological senses.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. opportunity, chance: a favourable moment for doing or obtaining something.^[5][1]
2. Cause or reason why something is done or happens: No me ha dado ocasión para quejarme de él.^[5][16]
3. Danger, risk.^[5][16]
4. occasion, a time together with its circumstances: En esa ocasión llegamos tarde.^[16][1]
5. A bargain;^[16] de ocasión “second-hand, cheap”.^[16]

Word family

• ocasionar
• ocasional
• ocasionalmente

Related words

• caer
• occidente
• caso
• Latin occāsiō

Usage notes

In Catholic moral theology an ocasión próxima is one in which a person nearly always falls into sin and so must avoid it, and an ocasión remota one that does not of itself lead to sin.^[5][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ocasión
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. ocasión
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ocasión
5. ^ a b c d e 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. ocasión
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 4660
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. ocasión
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. occasion
11. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 363
12. ^ 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. ocasión
13. ^ 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. ocasión
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, s.v. ocasión
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 752
16. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ocasión
17. ^ 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. ocasión