origen

Forms

origen m (plural orígenes)^[1] Alfonso de Palencia (1490) has the fuller Latin form origine.^[2] The word was sometimes feminine (la origen) in the 15th and 16th centuries, as in Nebrija's Latin dictionary and in Fuenmayor (1595); Autoridades already calls it masculine.^[3][2][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin orīgō (“beginning, source”), through the stem of its oblique cases.^[2][5][6][1] Corominas calls it a learned word, but one in wide use.^[2] The Latin noun is formed from orior (“to rise, appear above the horizon”) with the suffix -īgō.^[7][1] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₃er- (“to stir, rise”), the root of Ancient Greek ὄρνυμι (órnumi, “to stir up”).^[8][1]

French origine was likewise borrowed from Latin, in 1470, and replaced the inherited orine.^[9][10] The English cognate is origin.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary of about 1495 has origen por principio, that is, “origin in the sense of beginning”, rendered by Latin origo.^[11][5] The DEMel cites an earlier example from the Libro de los exemplos (1400–1421), and DICCA-XV dates its first record to 1441.^[12][3]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 defines it as the beginning and birth of something.^[13] Autoridades has four senses that the modern dictionary still lists: beginning, birth, source, or cause and root of a thing; the homeland where one was born or where one's family began; ancestry or family; and, figuratively, a moral principle or cause.^[4][6] The Academy added the geometrical origen de las coordenadas in 1884.^[14] The earliest example from the Americas is from Lima in 1631, about the origin of an illness.^[15]

In Argentina, Chile and Guatemala saber de buen origen “to know on good authority” was common; purists wanted de buen original or de buena tinta instead.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 1400–1421 – an example in the Libro de los exemplos.^[12]
• 1441 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[3]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses the form origine.^[2]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses origo as la origen.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary has origen por principio.^[11][5]
• 1595 – Fuenmayor treats it as feminine.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and derives it from origo.^[13]
• 1631 – the first example from the Americas, in Lima.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the geometrical sense.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The beginning, birth, source or cause of something; origin: Nadie sabe el origen de la disputa.^[6][18][1]
2. The country or place where someone was born or their family began, or where something comes from: Es un queso de origen suizo.^[6][18]
3. ancestry, family background.^[6][18]
4. A moral principle, motive or cause.^[6]
5. (geometry) The point where the coordinate axes meet (origen de coordenadas).^[6][18]

Word family

• original
• originar
• originario
• aborigen

Related words

• oriente
• oriundo
• Latin origo
• French origine

Usage notes

Denominación de origen is the official designation of a product's place of origin.^[6] The DPCAX records a separate Old Spanish origen in the General estoria, the name of an animal, the oryx, in a list of clean beasts.^[19] The CDH's early hits are mostly the name of the Church Father Orígenes.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 297
3. ^ a b c d 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. origen
4. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 56
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. origen
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. origen
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
11. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 390
12. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. origen
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1179
14. ^ 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. 765
15. ^ 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. origen
16. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 342
17. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 414
18. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. origen
19. ^ 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. origen
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. origen