país

Forms

país m (plural países)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French pays, first recorded in Spanish in 1597.^[2][3][4][1] The French word, païs in Old French, comes from Medieval Latin pagensis “inhabitant of a rural district”, used with nouns such as ager (“field”) for the land of a district, from Latin pāgus (“country district”) with the suffix -ēnsis.^[4][5][1][6] The French noun took the senses “countryside”, then “region”, and finally “country”.^[2][7]

The same Latin adjective gave Catalan pagès (“peasant”), whence Spanish payés “Catalan peasant”; Italian paese is its Italian descendant.^[2][3][1] The Latin noun itself survived in Spanish as pago “farming district”, recorded in a Leonese charter of 1095.^[2][8] It is traced to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to fasten, fix”), perhaps as “a space with fixed boundaries”, the root of pangō.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Góngora in 1597, followed by Villaviciosa in 1615 and Balbuena in 1624; the word is still missing in Covarrubias, Percyvall and the Quijote.^[2] At first it was a military and a painters' term, and only later the general word for “country”.^[2] The CDH hits of the 13th century are the surname Payz, not this word.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the Academy defined país as “region, kingdom, province or territory”, and also as a painting of towns, castles and countryside, the sense that gave paisaje.^[11][2] By 1917 it also named the leaf of a fan.^[12] Baralt in 1855 condemned as a Gallicism the use of país for the nation or its people, as in the Sociedades de amigos del país, while noting that older writers had used the word in other French senses.^[13] Corominas notes that the word became very popular in the Americas and in Spanish cities.^[2] In Cuba and the Dominican Republic los países means foreign countries, above all the United States.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 1597 – Góngora uses the borrowed word, as a military term.^[2][3]
• 1605 – the first record from the Americas, in Nueva Galicia: un mal país “bad ground”.^[16]
• 1708 – the derivative paisaje is first recorded, in Palomino.^[2]
• 1843 – the Academy defines it as a region or territory and as a landscape painting.^[11]
• 1855 – Baralt lists its use for “nation” among the Gallicisms.^[13]
• 1917 – Alemany records the sense “leaf of a fan”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A country: a territory forming a sovereign state.^[4][1]
2. A region with its own geography and culture, which may form a political unit within a state, as in País Vasco.^[4][17]
3. The people of a country: Todo el país siguió el partido.^[4]
4. The leaf of a fan: the paper, skin or cloth covering its ribs.^[4]
5. (rare) A landscape painting or drawing.^[4]

Word family

• antepaís
• apaisado
• malpaís
• paisaje
• paisano

Related words

• pagano
• pago
• payés
• French pays
• Italian paese

Usage notes

Del país describes a local product: fruta del país.^[4][18] Vivir sobre el país is a military phrase for troops that live off the territory they occupy, and figuratively for living at others' expense.^[4][19] In Mexico, the Antilles and Central America the stress often shifts to the stronger vowel, páis.^[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 g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 338
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pago
4. ^ 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. país
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. país
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. país
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 530
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. país
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 Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1243
13. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. s.v. país
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. país
15. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. país
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. país
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. país
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. país
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 562
20. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 88