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parecer

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word parecer

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 950 Glosas Emilianenses More words from the 10th century
Inherited from
Latin *paresco via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin pāreō

Pronunciation

  • /paɾeˈθeɾ/, [pa.ɾeˈθeɾ], /paɾeˈseɾ/[1]

Forms

parecer (first-person singular present parezco, first-person singular preterite parecí, past participle parecido)[1] Old Spanish wrote parescer, paresçer and pareçer (paresce, pareçrá).[2][3] Popular speech reduces parece to paece, paez, pes, pae or pa;[4][5] Asturian and Leonese have paecer, and Old Aragonese parexer.[6][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish parescer, inherited from Vulgar Latin *pārēscere (“to begin to appear”), an inchoative derivative of pāreō (“to appear; to obey”).[6][7][8][1] Corominas thinks the verb was already formed in Vulgar Latin, since the suffix is not productive in Gallo-Romance or Catalan, and Late Latin apparescere is found from about 300.[6] Wiktionary also allows a derivation from that compound with the prefix lost.[1] Catalan and Gallo-Romance at first kept the simple Latin verb, which disappeared very early in Spanish and Portuguese.[6]

The same formation is Portuguese parecer, Galician parecer, Catalan parèixer and Occitan paréisser.[6][9][10] The simple verb survives in Italian parere and Romanian părea.[11][12]

pāreō goes back to *pāzēō, and both de Vaan and Wiktionary connect it, with some doubt, with *peh₂-s- (“to watch, see”), the source of Albanian pashë (“I saw”).[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the verb from the beginnings of the language, in the Glosas Emilianenses and the Cantar de mio Cid; the BDELC dates it to about 950.[6][7] In the Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) it means “to show, become visible”: „allí pareçrá el que merece la soldada” “there it will be seen who deserves his pay”.[3] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223) speaks of „el arco que paresçe en el ayre” “the rainbow that appears in the air”.[3]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “to appear, be seen” is still common in Berceo, the Libro de Alexandre and Cervantes, who writes of Don Quixote and his horse that „no parecen” “cannot be found”.[6][14] Covarrubias (1611) lists “to appear in court”, “to turn up, of something lost”, parecerse “to resemble” and “to be seen from afar”.[15] Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 already has parecer en juizio “to appear in court”.[16]

The infinitive became a noun.[17][7] Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses parescer for a person's face and bearing and for pomp, and the DEMel records the noun in the Libro de Alexandre and in a text of Alfonso X of 1254.[17][2] The sense “opinion” is dated by Corominas to about 1575, in Ambrosio de Morales.[6][7] Covarrubias gives both, pareceres de letrados “lawyers' opinions” and tiene buen parecer “she has good looks”.[15] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 records tomar parecer “to take advice” and the proverb después de beber, cada uno dice su parecer.[18] In Honduras and Nicaragua the verb means “to please”.[19]

Timeline

  • c. 950 – the BDELC's date, from the Glosas Emilianenses.[7][6]
  • c. 1140 – “to show, be seen” in the Cantar de mio Cid (14th-century copy).[3]
  • c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo, the earliest text with the verb in a contemporary copy.[3]
  • 1254 – the infinitive used as a noun in Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas.[2]
  • 1270–1284 – the noun parescer “face and bearing” in the Estoria de España.[17]
  • 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary has parecer en juizio “to appear in court”.[16]
  • 1515 – the first records from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.[20]
  • c. 1575 – the noun parecer “opinion”, in Ambrosio de Morales.[6][7]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records both the verb and the noun.[15]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Latin parere.[18]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (copulative) To seem, look: to have a given appearance: Tu hermano parece cansado.[8][1]
  2. Of a thing: to appear, show itself.[8][1]
  3. With a clause introduced by que: to be thought likely by someone: Me parece que tienes razón.[8][1]
  4. (impersonal) With a clause introduced by que: to give the impression of what it states: Parece que hoy no abren.[8][1]
  5. Of something lost or hidden: to turn up, be found.[8]
  6. (pronominal) To resemble, look like: Se parece mucho a su abuela.[8][1]

Noun

  1. opinion, judgement: a mi parecer “in my opinion”.[21][1][22]
  2. A person's looks, appearance: de buen parecer “good-looking”.[21][22][1]

Word family

  • parecido
  • aparecer
  • desaparecer
  • aparente
  • apariencia
  • comparecer
  • transparente
  • Latin pāreō
  • Portuguese parecer

Usage notes

Al parecer and a lo que parece introduce a judgement based on appearances, “apparently”;[23][24][25] parecer bien means “to look well” or “to seem right”.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. parecer
  3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. parecer
  4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4805
  5. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. paecer
  6. ^ 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, 400
  7. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parecer
  8. ^ 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. parecer
  9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2480
  10. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. parèixer
  11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pārēre
  12. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom, p. s.v. */ˈpar-e-/
  13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 831
  15. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1195
  16. ^ 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. parecer
  17. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. parecer
  18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 790
  19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. parecer
  20. ^ 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. padecer
  21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. parecer
  22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parecer
  23. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mejor
  24. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 294
  25. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4256

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Parecer.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/parecer. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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