período

Forms

período m (plural períodos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin periodus, which is from Ancient Greek περίοδος (períodos, “a going round, circuit”).^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary calls the Latin source New Latin.^[1] The Greek word is formed from περί (perí, “around”) and ὁδός (hodós, “way, road”).^[1][5][6] The DHLF puts that noun under an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to go”).^[7]

In Greek the word already had many senses, among them the revolution of the stars, a regular return, a span of life and, in rhetoric, a rounded sentence; the temporal senses grew out of the revolution of the stars.^[5][8] The stress of the Spanish word follows the Greek accent.^[8] The word was borrowed as French période in the 14th century, perhaps through Latin.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Enrique de Villena, in his translation and glosses of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442), explains where to make a período with a full stop, the puncto periodal.^[9] Alfonso de Palencia, in 1490, glosses clausula as what the Greeks call periodo, and this is the first record in Corominas.^[9][2][3] Nebrija's grammar of 1492 uses it for a group of verses that holds one notable sentence, and explains that the Greek word means “end” and the Latin circuitus “a going round”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

A medical sense appears in the translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery (1498), where tumours are treated in their periodos, or times of rest, and their paroxysms.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades has the full range: a set number of years, months or days after which something returns to the same state, as the Moon does; the whole span of a thing; a complete sentence; a chronological cycle such as the Julian period; the highest point of a star; and in medicine the course of a fever.^[10] The Academy added menstruation in 1899, and Alemany the repeating figures of a recurring decimal in 1917.^[4][11] Modern dictionaries also have the sense in physics, the time of one cycle of a periodic phenomenon, and the geological period.^[12][1]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena uses período for the end of a sentence (in a copy of 1442).^[9]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario, Corominas's first record.^[2][3][9]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Gramática castellana explains the Greek term.^[9]
• 1498 – a medical sense in the Castilian Guy de Chauliac.^[9]
• 1619 – first record in the Americas, at Cartagena: aquí quiero hacer período “here I will make a stop”.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses of time, sentence, chronology, astronomy and medicine.^[10]
• 1737 – the derivative periódico.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin periodus and Greek.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense “menstruation”.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The time something takes to come back to the state or position it had at the start.^[12]
2. A period or span of time covering the whole duration of something: Fue un período difícil para la familia.^[12][1]
3. Menstruation, the monthly flow of women and of the females of some animals.^[12][15]
4. A cycle of time: período juliano.^[12]
5. (physics) The time a periodic phenomenon takes to pass through all its phases, as a pendulum or the Earth round the Sun.^[12]
6. (grammar) A sentence structure, usually in two parts, made of a main and a subordinate clause, especially a conditional or concessive one.^[12]
7. (mathematics) The figure or group of figures that repeats without end after the whole quotient in an inexact division.^[12]
8. (medicine) The time that certain phenomena last in the course of a disease.^[12][15]
9. (geology) A geochronological unit, a subdivision of an era.^[1][8]

Word family

• periódico
• periodismo
• periodístico
• periodista
• periodización
• periodizar
• periodicidad

Related words

• episodio
• método
• éxodo
• sínodo
• French période

Usage notes

Both stresses are used: período and periodo.^[1][16] In Puerto Rico popular speech prefers periodo for menstruation and período for the other senses.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 650
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. episodio
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 767
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. período
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 541
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. période
8. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. período
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. período
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 224
11. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1299
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. período
13. ^ 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. período
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 817
15. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. período
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. período
17. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. período