patriota

Forms

patriota m or f (masculine and feminine plural patriotas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin patriōta (“fellow countryman”),^[2][1] a borrowing of Ancient Greek πατριώτης (patriṓtēs, “fellow countryman”).^[3][1] The DLE and Corominas name the Greek word itself as the source.^[4][5] In the sense “compatriot” the word is found from the 16th century; the modern sense “one who loves his country” came from French patriote, which took it on during the French Revolution.^[5][6][7] Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva derive the whole word from French.^[1][8] In French the word is a borrowing of the 15th century from Late Latin, and its sense of love of country dates from 1756.^[9]

The Greek noun is formed from πατριά (patriā́, “lineage, clan”) with the suffix -ώτης (-ṓtēs).^[1] It was used of barbarians who shared only a native land, while Greeks of one city were πολῖται (polítēs).^[10] The family goes back to πατήρ (patḗr, “father”) and Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr (“father”), the source of Latin pater and of padre.^[8][1] The same word is Catalan patriota, Portuguese patriota and Italian patriota.^[1][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's Batallas y quinquagenas (1535–c. 1552), in the old sense “fellow citizen”: Puede dezir Madrid que ningún vezino ha tenido tan vtil a sus patriotas “Madrid can say that no citizen has been so useful to his fellow townsmen”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th century it still meant “compatriot”: Góngora, Castillo Solórzano and Amaya use it so.^[13][5] Autoridades gave only this sense and treated it as a poor substitute for compatriota, “which is how it is said”,^[14] and Terreros in 1788 did the same.^[15]

The sense “one who loves his country and seeks its good” arrived from French around 1800;^[16] Corominas finds it in Moratín, and the Academy's dictionary of 1817 put it first and marked “compatriot” as obsolete.^[5][6][16] In the Americas vecinos patriotas appear in Buenos Aires in 1773, and a writer of Lima in 1775 would have thought himself a bad patriot if he had not published the country's glories.^[17] In 1846 Domínguez complained that the political parties had distorted the true sense of the word.^[18] Modern Spanish also uses it as an adjective, “patriotic”,^[1][19] and regional senses include a one-peso note or coin in jocular Cuban use and, in Central America, a variety of plantain.^[4][20]

Timeline

• 1535–c. 1552 – first record, in Fernández de Oviedo, in the sense “fellow citizen”.^[13]
• 1610 – Góngora uses it in Las firmezas de Isabela.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives it as a less proper form of compatriota.^[14]
• 1773 – first record from the Americas in the modern sense, in Buenos Aires.^[17]
• c. 1800 – the modern sense, from French, appears in Spanish.^[6][5]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary gives the modern sense first and marks “compatriot” as obsolete.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Greek.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A patriot: a person who loves their country and works for its good: Lo recuerdan como un patriota.^[4][1][19]
2. (rare) A compatriot (compatriota).^[4]
3. (Cuba, colloquial, jocular) A one-peso note or coin.^[4]
4. (Central America) A ripe plantain of a thick, short variety, and the plant that bears it.^[4][20]

Adjective

1. patriotic; loving one's country.^[1][19]

Word family

• patriótico
• patriotismo
• patriotero

Related words

• patria
• padre
• compatriota
• French patriote

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1278
3. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. patriota
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 335
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. padre
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. patriota
8. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. patriota
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. patriote
10. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. patriota
12. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. patriota
13. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. patriota
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 166
15. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 66
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 649
17. ^ 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. patriota
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, 1343
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. patriota
20. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. patriota
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 801