parábola

Forms

parábola f (plural parábolas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin parabola (“comparison; parable”), which is from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ, “juxtaposition, comparison”).^[2][1][3] The Greek noun comes from παραβάλλω (parabállō, “to set side by side, compare”), formed from παρά (pará, “beside”) and βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”).^[1][4] Wiktionary takes the geometrical sense from New Latin or directly from Greek.^[1] Gómez de Silva dates the New Latin term 1544 and explains it by the parallel between a side of the cone and the plane that cuts it.^[1][5]

It is the learned doublet of palabra, the popular outcome of the same Latin word.^[6][1][7] In Latin the word first meant a comparison in rhetoric, in Seneca and Quintilian.^[3][8] Christian writers used it for a parable, and the Vulgate also for a speech or word, the sense that survives in the Romance languages, where it replaced Latin verbum.^[3][8] Its inherited outcomes include Portuguese palavra, French parole and Italian parola.^[9][8][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is the Barlaam e Josafat (c. 1400, in a 15th-century copy), with the heading Parábola de la semiente “the parable of the seed”.^[11] Gómez Manrique, in the third quarter of the 15th century, writes of Saint Gregory explaining the parable of the seed that fell among thorns.^[11][6]

Semantic evolution

The Biblia de Alba (c. 1422–1433) calls the book of Proverbs libro de las parábolas.^[11] In a novel of about 1450 an emperor likes to hear parábolas, semejanças y estorias “parables, similes and stories”.^[11] The BDELC dates the learned word to the mid-15th century, and the DCECH finds it as a fully Spanish word in Lope.^[12][6] A Mexican text of 1571 still glosses it semejança o figura, and one from Lima of 1585 contrasts a parable with a comedy.^[13]

The Academy's 1817 edition is the first of its dictionaries here to define the geometrical curve, a conic section, with the phrases parábolas asíntotas and parábolas iguales.^[14] Its 1899 edition gives the Latin and Greek etymology.^[15] In the Dominican Republic parábola is also a satellite dish.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – Parábola de la semiente in the Barlaam e Josafat (in a 15th-century copy).^[11]
• 1413 – first record of the adjective parabólico, in Villena.^[6]
• c. 1422–1433 – the Biblia de Alba's libro de las parábolas for Proverbs.^[11]
• c. 1445 – c. 1480 – Gómez Manrique on the parable of the seed.^[11][6]
• c. 1450 – parábolas, semejanças y estorias in Diego de Cañizares.^[11]
• 1571 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy defines the geometrical curve.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. parable: an invented story from which a truth or a moral lesson is drawn by comparison: El sacerdote comentó la parábola del buen samaritano.^[2][18][1]
2. (geometry) parabola: an open curve whose points are equidistant from a fixed line and a fixed point, obtained by cutting a cone with a plane parallel to a generatrix.^[2][18][1]
3. (Dominican Republic) A satellite dish.^[16][17]

Word family

• paraboloide
• parabolizar

Related words

• parabólico
• palabra
• Latin parabola
• French parabole

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. parábola
3. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 522
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 523
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 345
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4793
8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. parole
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2441
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6221
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. parábola
12. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. palabra
13. ^ 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. parábola
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 637
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 740
16. ^ a b 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. parábola
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. parábola 2
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parábola