pecar

Forms

pecar (first-person singular present peco, first-person singular preterite pequé, past participle pecado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pecar, inherited from Latin pecco (“to make a mistake, do wrong”), but only as a semi-learned word.^[2][1] Corominas notes that the stressed /e/ never diphthongizes, from the earliest texts on (⟨peco⟩, not ⟨pieco⟩), and that the word is semi-learned in all the Romance languages.^[2][1] The DCECH and the BDELC call it taken from Latin, and Wiktionary a learned borrowing.^[2][3][1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese pecar, Galician pecar, Catalan pecar, Occitan pecar, French pécher, Italian peccare and Sardinian pecare.^[4][5][2] Basque has the noun as Basque bekatu (“sin”), in nearly all dialects and already in Leizarraga (1554).^[2] Meyer-Lübke and the Academy derive peca “freckle” from the verb.^[6][4]

The Latin verb meant “to stumble” and “to make a mistake”;^[7][8] Christian Latin narrowed it to “to sin against divine law”.^[7][8] De Vaan reports the old etymology Proto-Indo-European *ped-ko- “having a fault at the foot”, connected with pes (“foot”), but finds it unlikely, since the verb never refers to feet;^[9] Leumann's *pet-ko- “a fall, error” fits the sense better, though the formation is odd.^[9] Wiktionary traces it to *petkāō, from *ped- (“to walk, fall, stumble”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo (1220–1250): La materia es alta, temo que peccaremos “the matter is lofty, I fear we shall go astray”.^[2][3][11] The noun pecado is older, from 1107.^[2] In the Alfonsine law, the confessor must consider what sin was committed & si muestra quel pesa por que peco “and whether he shows that he is sorry that he sinned”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades gives three senses: to break the law of God, to fail in any duty or in the rules of an art, and to go to excess in something, as in pecaba de nécio “he erred by being foolish”.^[13] The Academy's 1817 dictionary added the senses of indulging a strong liking, giving cause for punishment, and, in medicine, the excess of a humour, with the phrase darle por donde peca “to reproach someone for a habitual fault”.^[14]

Today pecar de with an adjective means to have too much of a quality: pecar de generoso.^[15][16] In Honduras and El Salvador sin pecar says of a thing that it is new or clean.^[17] In Judeo-Spanish the verb came to mean “to pay grudgingly, to spend money against one's will”.^[18]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record, in Berceo.^[3][2][11]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's laws use it of the penitent who has sinned.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin pecco, committo and admitto.^[19]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, from Tierra Firme.^[20]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “to sin”.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “to go to excess”.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the medical sense and the phrase darle por donde peca.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, from Latin peccare.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sin, to commit a sin: Confesó que había pecado de pensamiento.^[15][1]
2. To commit a moral offence or fault.^[15][16]
3. To go too far in something, to have too much of a quality, with de: Su informe peca de optimista.^[15][23]

Word family

• pecado
• pecador
• pecable
• pecante

Related words

• impecable
• pecaminoso
• peca
• Latin pecco
• Portuguese pecar

Usage notes

The colloquial phrase aquí que no peco expresses the intention of committing an excess where one can escape the blame.^[15] Pecar is also, rarely, the name of the peccary, perhaps from Guarani, recorded from 1780 in Clavijero; the Academy's dictionaries don't include it, and the usual word is pecarí.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 450
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pecar
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. peccare
5. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom, p. s.v. */ˈpɛkk-a-/
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. peccare
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. pécher
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. peccō
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. pecco
11. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 567
12. ^ a b 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. pecar
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 175
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 651
15. ^ a b c d e 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. pecar
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pecar
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pecar
18. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. pecar
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 394
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. pecar
21. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 186
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 803
23. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pecar
24. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. pecar