púlpito

Forms

púlpito m (plural púlpitos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pulpitum (“wooden platform, stage”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] In Berceo it appears once in a Frenchified form, Old Spanish púlpite.^[2]

The Latin noun named a wooden platform for plays, recitations and lectures, and is of doubtful origin.^[5][6] Wiktionary reports the view that it was borrowed from Greek, perhaps a back-formation from the plural pulpita through an Etruscan form, from Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous, “many-footed, trodden by many feet”); it calls the origin obscure.^[1] In Medieval Latin it came to mean the ambo or lectern of a church.^[7][8]

The same Latin word was borrowed as Portuguese púlpito (15th-century pulpeto), Catalan púlpit and Italian pulpito.^{[9][10][11][1]} French pupitre, a popular reshaping of the same word in that language, came into Spanish about 1830 as pupitre “writing desk”, a doublet with a change of meaning.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo uses the Frenchified púlpite in the Sacrificio de la misa, of the priest of the Old Law coming down from the pulpit to visit the people: quando ixié del púlpite o la arca estava “when he came out of the pulpit where the ark was”.^[2] The form púlpito is first found in a document of León cathedral of 1419–1426, of a burial outside the pulpit.^[12] Alonso de Palencia (1490) still used it only in the classical sense of a stage.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the word could still mean a raised platform in general: Villena's Eneida (1427–1428) describes one in the middle of a theatre, and in the Victorial a commander climbs a high púlpito to harangue his men.^[12] Nebrija gives Latin pulpitum and pergula as its equivalents, and Covarrubias (1611) explained that it had once been the stage of the tragic choruses and was now the place from which the sermon, the Epistle and the Gospel were delivered.^[13][14][15] Corominas notes that from the 16th century, when Autoridades quotes Illescas (1565), it always refers to church matters.^[2][16]

The Academy dictionary of 1817 added the sense “the office of preacher in a religious order”, with the phrase quedarse sin púlpito.^[17] Domínguez (1846) also used it for the influence of the clergy over lay society.^[18] In the Americas it is recorded from 1532, in Mexico.^[19] The word passed into pulpito and pulpito.^[1]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses the form púlpite.^[2][3]
• 1419–1426 – first record of púlpito, in a document of León cathedral.^[12]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia uses it in the classical sense “stage”.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin pulpitum.^[14][13]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the older theatrical sense.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the sense “office of preacher”.^[17]
• c. 1830 – the doublet pupitre is taken from French.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. pulpit: a small raised platform with a parapet (antepecho) and a sounding board (tornavoz) in some churches, from which sermons are preached and other religious acts are performed: El cura subió al púlpito para la homilía.^[4][1][20]
2. In religious orders, the office of preacher (predicador).^[4][20]

Related words

• pupitre
• Latin pulpitum
• Portuguese púlpito
• Catalan púlpit
• Italian pulpito

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 689
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pulpito
4. ^ a b c 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. púlpito
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. pulpitum
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. pulpitum
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. pulpitum
8. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. pulpitum
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2764
10. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 6, 863
11. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. púlpit
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. púlpito
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 402
14. ^ 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. púlpito
15. ^ 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. 1236
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 430
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 715
18. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1439
19. ^ 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. púlpito
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. púlpito