parangón

Forms

parangón m (plural parangones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian paragone (“touchstone; comparison”), a noun formed from the verb paragonare (“to test gold on the touchstone; to compare”).^[2][3][4] The Italian verb comes from Ancient Greek παρακονάω (parakonáō, “to sharpen, whet by rubbing”), made of παρά (pará) and a verb derived from ἀκόνη (akónē, “whetstone, pumice”).^[2][3][5] Gold was tested by rubbing it on a hard stone, which explains the step from “sharpen” to “test” and then “compare”.^[2][4] Nocentini places the borrowing from Greek in the Byzantine period, through the dialects of central and southern Italy, where an Abruzzese verb apparagunà still means “to sharpen”.^[5]

Corominas argues against deriving the Italian noun straight from Greek, as Meyer-Lübke and others did, since the noun has no Greek model and the change of meaning is easier to explain through the verb.^[2] The first ⟨n⟩ of the Spanish word spread from the second; a form parangone also exists in Italian, for instance in Tasso.^[2] Italian had the word long before Spanish: Boccaccio already uses it, and the DELI dates the noun to the 13th century.^[2][6] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 and 1899 derived it from the Spanish phrase para con, as Diez had done;^[7][8] Corominas rejects this.^[7][8][2] The DLE now derives it from the variant paragón.^[9][1]

Portuguese paragão also comes from Italian.^[2] Nocentini takes French parangon from Spanish, while Corominas and the DHLF take it from Italian.^[5][2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the noun first in Torres Naharro in 1517, a century before the verb parangonar.^[2][3] The CDH's earliest hit is in Motolinía's Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España (1536–1541), where a man is set al parangón con cualquiera de los capitanes y reyes “in comparison with any of the captains and kings” of antiquity.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word still sounded Italian in the 16th century: in 1570 Cristóbal de las Casas translated Italian paragone with other Spanish words (“proof, touchstone, equality, likeness”).^[2] Oudin's dictionary recorded both paragon and parangon “likeness, comparison”.^[2] Spanish never took over the Italian sense “touchstone”: the Academy has defined it as “comparison or likeness” from 1884 to the DLE.^[7][9] It is often used in the negative, as in no tener parangón “to be beyond compare”.^[12][13] A doublet parragón, an assayer's bar of silver, has been in the Academy's dictionary since 1817.^[2]

In Mexico the word took local senses: in the Altotonga region of Veracruz it named a speech that had to open family celebrations such as weddings and baptisms.^[14]

Timeline

• 1517 – first record, in Torres Naharro.^[2][3]
• 1536–1541 – Motolinía uses al parangón con in New Spain.^[11]
• 1549 – Jerónimo de Urrea's translation of the Orlando furioso has haciendo parangón.^[11]
• 1570 – Cristóbal de las Casas still renders Italian paragone with other words.^[2]
• 1607 – first record of the verb parangonar.^[3]
• 1758 – first record in Venezuela.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from para con.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A comparison or parallel drawn between two things; likeness: Su talento no tiene parangón en el país.^[9][13][1]

Related words

• parangonar
• paragón
• Italian paragone
• French parangon

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 392
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parangonar
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. parangón
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. paragonare
6. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. paragonare
7. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 789
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 741
9. ^ 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. parangón
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. parangon
11. ^ 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. parangón
12. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. parangón
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parangón
14. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 805
15. ^ 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. parangón