página

Forms

página f (plural páginas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pāgina (“page, column of writing”), a learned word first recorded in Alfonso de Palencia in 1490.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun began as a farmers' word: Pliny uses it for a trellis, and the DCECH and the Breve diccionario explain it as four rows of vines joined in a rectangle;^[2][3][5][6] Bénaben and Gómez de Silva take the sense “column of writing”, and then “page”, as a comparison of shape.^[2][3][5][6]

It belongs to the root of pangō (“to fix, fasten; to compose”), related to Ancient Greek πήγνυμι (pḗgnumi, “to fix”) and German fangen (“to catch”).^[2][3] Wiktionary makes the noun a full-grade formation from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten, fix”), perhaps from papyrus sheets fastened together or from letters fixed on the page.^[1] De Vaan reconstructs the present of the verb as *ph₂-n-ǵ-.^[7]

In Romance the word usually appears in learned forms, such as Italian pagina and French page, since the sense “leaf of a book” belonged to the lettered.^[2][8][1] The rustic senses survive in Italian pania (“lime twig”) and in a verb *paginare (“to fasten, prepare”) of Rhaetian, Alpine Lombard and Sardinian dialects.^[2][9] Corominas thinks that Galician paxes (“wicker baskets”), a dialect word of north-eastern Galicia, probably comes from the Latin word too, with the basic sense “interlacing of osiers”; he also considers a pre-Roman word of the same root, but finds no need to look outside Latin.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary of 1490 is the first record the DCECH and the Breve diccionario give.^[2][3] DEMel lists página earlier, in a record of the monedaje tax of Huesca of 1284.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that the word is still missing from Nebrija and Covarrubias and foreign to the language of the Quijote, where the classical word is plana;^[2] Autoridades quotes it from the end of the 16th century, and it has spread widely only since.^[2] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 still defined it through plana, the side of a leaf of a book; in 1899 it added the text written or printed on a page.^[11][12]

The figurative sense “episode in a life or in history” is recorded in the Americas in the 19th century: in Colombia in 1897, las páginas de la historia humana.^[13][4] The DLE now also has página web, which the Tesoro of Puerto Rico treats as an adapted anglicism from web page, in the Academy's dictionary since 2001.^[4][14] Spanish lent the word to Tagalog and Central Bikol as pahina.^[1]

Timeline

• 1284 – DEMel records página in a document on the monedaje of Huesca.^[10]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia, the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – still missing from Nebrija.^[2]
• 1611 – still missing from Covarrubias.^[2]
• late 16th century – the first quotations in the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[2]
• 1814 – the first record from the Americas, in Uruguay.^[13]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary defines it through plana.^[11]
• 1897 – las páginas de la historia humana in Colombia.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin pagina, and the sense “text of a page”.^[12]
• 2001 – página web enters the Academy's dictionary.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A page: each of the two sides of a leaf of a book or notebook.^[4][1]
2. What is written or printed on a page: Solo me dio tiempo a leer tres páginas.^[4][15]
3. An episode or event in the course of a life or an undertaking: Aquella derrota fue una página amarga de su carrera.^[4][16]
4. (computing) A web page (página web).^[4][14]

Word family

• paginar
• paginación
• compaginar

Related words

• plana
• compacto
• Latin pāgina
• Latin pangō
• French page

Usage notes

Páginas amarillas is the classified telephone directory, organised by trade.^[4][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 337
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. página
4. ^ 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. página
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
6. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 521
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 726
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial