penetrable

Forms

penetrable m or f (masculine and feminine plural penetrables)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin penetrābilis (“penetrating; that can be penetrated”).^[2][3][4] The Latin adjective is formed from penetrō (“to enter, penetrate”) with the suffix -bilis.^[5][1] Wiktionary derives the verb from penes (“in the power of”) and penitus (“inwardly”), on the model of intrō (“to enter”).^[1] The Spanish verb penetrar was taken from the same Latin verb in the second quarter of the 15th century.^[6]

French pénétrable is a formation from the French verb, pénétrer.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Breve diccionario dates the word to 1515, but the CDH has it much earlier, in Estéfano de Sevilla's Visita y consejo de médicos, in a manuscript of 1381.^[6][7][8] There it describes a good wine, in the active sense “penetrating”: clarissima al viso, penetrable, al gosto un poco agudo “very clear to the eye, penetrating, a little sharp to the taste”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Latin penetrabilis meant both “piercing” and “that can be pierced”.^[5][9] Fifteenth-century Spanish used the active sense: Alfonso de la Torre's penetrable fuego and Juan de Mena's penetrable viento boreal (c. 1439) are a piercing fire and a piercing north wind, and Alfonso de Palencia in 1490 calls an oil de muy delgada virtud & penetrable.^[7] The passive sense is found in the same period, in a phrase uençible por fierro & non penetrable (before 1452).^[7]

Autoridades knew only the passive meaning, what can be penetrated, extended to matters that can be understood.^[10] The Academy's dictionaries from 1843 call this second sense figurative, and the DLE defines it as easily understood.^[11][12][2] In 1690 a road in Nuevo León was montuoso aunque penetrable “hilly but passable”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1381 – first record, in Estéfano de Sevilla's medical treatise.^[7][8]
• c. 1439 – Juan de Mena writes of a penetrable viento boreal.^[7]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario.^[7]
• 1515 – the date Corominas's Breve diccionario gives for the word.^[6]
• 1690 – first record in the Americas, in Nuevo León.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives the passive sense and its extension to the understanding.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin penetrabilis.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That can be penetrated (penetrar) or passed through; penetrable: La selva es penetrable solo por el río.^[2][14][1]
2. Easily understood; comprehensible.^[2][15]

Word family

• penetrabilidad

Related words

• penetrar
• impenetrable
• penetrante
• Latin penetrābilis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. penetrable
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. penetrable
4. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 563
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. penetrābilis
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. penetrar
7. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. penetrable
8. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. penetrable
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. penetrābilis
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 203
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 548
12. ^ 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. 811
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. penetrable
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. penetrable
15. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. penetrable