ocupar

Forms

ocupar (first-person singular present ocupo, first-person singular preterite ocupé, past participle ocupado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin occupo (“to seize, take possession of”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from ob- and the root of capio (“to take”).^[5][6][7] Bénaben notes that the Latin passive meant “to be taken up by” something, from which came the weaker reflexive sense “to busy oneself with”.^[4]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese ocupar, Catalan ocupar, French occuper and Italian occupare, and the English word occupy.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's Breve diccionario dates the verb to 1438.^[2] The CDH has earlier Spanish hits: in the Crónica de Sahagún (dated c. 1255, but its Castilian text is known only from much later copies) the king „era mucho ocupado en otros arduos negoçios” “was much occupied with other hard business”, and in the Castigos of 1293 clerics are to „ocupasen en oraçiones” “occupy themselves in prayers”.^[9] A hit of 1208 is the word inside a Latin text.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word meant both “to keep busy” and, in chronicles, “to take, seize”: a 1305–1328 chronicle has a king „ocupado de la enfermedad de podagra” “taken by gout”.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades put “to take possession of” first, then “to hold an office” and “to fill an empty space”.^[10] Terreros added “to inhabit a house”.^[8] The Academy's 1884 edition already had almost all the modern senses, including the reflexive “to devote oneself to a task”.^[11]

In Mexico and Central America and parts of South America ocupar means “to use” and, in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico, “to need”.^[12][1] The New Mexican Spanish of the United States has the same “to need”.^[13] The Chilean purist Román criticised the spread of ocuparse de.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1255 – the Crónica de Sahagún, known only from much later copies, has ocupado “busy”.^[9]
• 1293 – the Castigos (BNM ms. 6559) have the reflexive “to be occupied in prayers”.^[9]
• 1438 – the first record according to the Breve diccionario.^[2]
• c. 1440 – first record of the noun ocupación.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin occupo as its equivalent.^[15]
• 1525 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as taking possession, holding an office and filling a space.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the reflexive senses.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take possession of a territory, place or building by invading it or settling in it: Las tropas ocuparon el puerto.^[3][1]
2. To hold a post, office or rank: Ocupa la presidencia desde marzo.^[3][1]
3. To fill or take up a space or a time: El armario ocupa media pared.^[3][1]
4. To live in, inhabit a house.^[3][1]
5. To give someone work, to employ.^[3][1]
6. To hinder or get in someone's way.^[3]
7. To draw someone's attention, give them something to think about.^[3]
8. (reflexive) To be busy with a task; to look after a person; to take charge of a matter (ocuparse de): Yo me ocupo de las entradas.^[3][1]
9. (Mexico, Central America, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay) To use.^[12][1]
10. (Mexico, Central America) To need.^[12][1]

Word family

• ocupación
• ocupante
• desocupar
• okupar

Related words

• preocupar
• Latin occupo
• English occupy

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. ocupar
3. ^ 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. ocupar
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ocupar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. occupo
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. capio
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 502
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, 694
9. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. ocupar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 17
11. ^ 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. 753
12. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ocupar
13. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 141
14. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. s.v. ocupar
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 388
16. ^ 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. ocupar