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ofrecer

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word ofrecer

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1140 Cantar de mio Cid, in a 14th-century copy More words from the 12th century
Ultimate origin
Latin ferō

Pronunciation

  • /ofɾeˈθeɾ/, [o.fɾeˈθeɾ], /ofɾeˈseɾ/[1]

Forms

ofrecer (first-person singular present ofrezco, first-person singular preterite ofrecí, past participle ofrecido)[1] Old Spanish spelt the verb ofrescer, offrecer and offresçer, and Autoridades still noted ofrescer as the older form in 1737.[2][3][1] The older verb ofrir, with the present uffre, is found in Berceo.[4]

Etymology

It is formed from Old Spanish ofrir + -ecer, the suffix of many Spanish verbs.[4][1][5] ofrir came by the popular route from Latin, through Vulgar Latin *offerire, which moved the classical offerō (“to bring before, offer”) into the fourth conjugation.[4][6][1] The DLE says only that the verb comes from a derivative of the Latin word.[7]

The Latin verb is a compound of ob- (“towards, in front of”) and ferō (“to carry, bear”), so that it first meant “to carry before someone”, hence “to show” and “to offer”.[8][1][9] The present stem of the simple verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”).[1][10]

Portuguese oferecer and Galician ofrecer have the same inchoative suffix;[11][12] Cunha and Nascentes derive the Portuguese verb from Vulgar Latin *offerescere.[11][12] The verb without it survives in Catalan oferir, Aragonese ofrir, Asturian ufrir “to make an offering for the dead”, French offrir and Italian offrire.[13][14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), in a prayer to God that recalls the three kings who came from Arabia: oro e tus e mirra te ofrecieron “they offered you gold and incense and myrrh”.[16][6] The same scene is the earliest record in a manuscript of its own time, the Libre dels tres reys d’Orient (c. 1230–1260): offrecieron oro & ençjensso & mjrra.[16]

Semantic evolution

The religious sense, giving something to God or a saint, is old: Berceo describes the offerings of the Temple, and the prose of Alfonso X uses the verb for promising goods to God or the Church, for giving alms at Mass and, in the reflexive, for volunteering oneself.[16][17] In Autoridades (1737) the verb meant to promise something freely, to present and give willingly, and to show something openly to everyone.[3] The Academy's 1817 dictionary added the colloquial sense “to go into a tavern for a drink”, and its 1843 edition the reflexive senses “to come suddenly to mind”, “to happen” and “to put oneself at someone's disposal”.[18][19] The reflexive “to occur, arise” is also the first sense recorded in the Americas, in a letter from Darién in 1520.[20]

Today the verb also means to bid a sum for something.[7] In the Dominican Republic the exclamation ¡ofrézcome! expresses surprise or fear.[21]

Timeline

  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses ofrecer for the gifts of the three kings.[16][4]
  • c. 1230–1260 – the Libre dels tres reys d’Orient has offrecieron in a contemporary manuscript.[16]
  • 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's legal prose uses it for promising and for offerings to God.[17]
  • 1495 – Nebrija gives the noun ofrecimiento, and his Latin equivalent of the verb is offero.[6][22]
  • 1520 – the first record from the Americas, in Darién.[20]
  • 1737 – Autoridades derives it from Latin offerre and records the older form ofrescer.[3]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. offerre”.[23]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To promise or commit oneself to give, do or say something.[7][1]
  2. To offer, present and give something of one's own free will: Le ofrecimos un café al llegar.[7][1]
  3. To show something openly for everyone to see.[7]
  4. To present or involve; of a thing, to show a certain appearance: El nuevo plan ofrece varias ventajas.[7]
  5. (religion) To dedicate to God or a saint a good deed or a suffering; to give alms at Mass or another service.[7]
  6. To bid: to state how much one is willing to pay for something.[7]
  7. (colloquial) To go into a tavern for a drink.[7]
  8. (reflexive) Of a thing: to come suddenly to mind; to happen or arise.[7]
  9. (reflexive) To volunteer, put oneself at someone's disposal to do something: Se ofreció a llevarnos a casa.[7]
  10. (reflexive) To want, desire, as in the formula ¿Qué se le ofrece? “What can I do for you?”[7]

Word family

  • ofrecimiento
  • ofrecedor
  • ofreciente

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ofrecer
  3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 23
  4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 632
  5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
  6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ofrecer
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. ofrecer
  8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
  10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2376
  12. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. oferecer
  13. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4673
  14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  15. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  16. ^ 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. ofrecer
  17. ^ 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. ofrecer
  18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 611
  19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 508
  20. ^ 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. ofrecer
  21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ofrecer
  22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 388
  23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 755
Cite this entry

“Ofrecer.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/ofrecer. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·