perseguir

Forms

perseguir (first-person singular present persigo, first-person singular preterite perseguí, past participle perseguido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish perseguir, inherited from Latin persequor (“to follow persistently; to pursue”).^[2][3][4][1] As with seguir, the deponent infinitive of the Latin verb was replaced by an active form and the verb moved to the conjugation in -ire, giving Vulgar Latin *persequīre.^[2][1][5] Vox calls it an inherited word of the same family as the simple verb.^[6]

The same verb is Portuguese perseguir (in the 14th century persiguir), Galician perseguir, Catalan perseguir and Italian perseguire, beside Italian perseguitare.^[7][8][1] The Catalan dictionary of Alcover and Moll takes the Catalan verb as a learned borrowing from Latin.^[9] French persécuter, and through it English persecute, come instead from the Latin noun persecūtor or a Medieval Latin verb formed on it.^[10][1]

The Latin verb is formed from per- (“through”) and sequor (“to follow”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow, accompany”), the root of Ancient Greek ἕπομαι (hépomai).^[11][12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236, in a copy of the late 13th century), where a speaker begs: que tú non te travages tanto me perseguir “that you should not toil so hard to hound me”.^[13] Corominas and the DEMel also date it from Berceo.^[3][2][14]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the verb already had its main senses: to chase, in the Libro de Alexandre; to torment, of bad dreams; to prosecute lies and falsehoods, in Calila e Dimna; and to persecute for the faith, in Alfonso X's Partidas: si fue perseguido por amor de Dios.^[13][15] Percyvall glossed it in 1591 as “to persecute”, and Covarrubias in 1611 as to follow someone in order to do him harm.^[16][17] Autoridades gave four senses: to follow one who flees, to seek someone everywhere with persistence, to harass and make suffer, and to solicit insistently.^[18]

The sense “to strive for an aim” spread in the 19th century: Ramos recorded it in Mexican newspapers of 1891 and 1893, and Román in Chile condemned it as a Gallicism, since Spanish had pretender, proponerse or aspirar a.^[19][20] The DLE now lists it, beside the legal sense of proceeding against a person or an offence.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (in a late 13th-century copy).^[13]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's date for the verb.^[3]
• 1251 – Calila e Dimna (in a later copy) uses it of prosecuting lies.^[13]
• 1256–1263 – Alfonso X's Primera Partida: perseguido por amor de Dios.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin persequor.^[21]
• 1580 – first record from the Americas, in Tunja.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as following someone to harm him.^[17]
• 1737 – Autoridades gives four senses.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin persequi and labels the later senses figurative.^[23]
• 1891 – the sense “to pursue an aim” in a Mexican newspaper.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pursue, to chase: to follow someone who is fleeing in order to catch them: Dos policías persiguieron al ladrón.^[4][1]
2. To follow or seek someone everywhere, often and annoyingly.^[4]
3. To persecute, harass: to make someone suffer, trying to do them as much harm as possible.^[4][24]
4. To try to obtain or achieve something: Solo persigue un trabajo estable.^[4][24]
5. Of a thing or situation: to recur again and again in someone's life: Lo persigue la desgracia.^[4]
6. To solicit or seek with frequency, insistence or annoyance.^[4]
7. (law) To proceed against someone, or against an offence.^[4][24]

Word family

• perseguidor
• perseguimiento

Related words

• seguir
• persecución
• conseguir
• proseguir
• Latin persequor
• English persecute

Usage notes

The verb is conjugated like seguir, with ⟨i⟩ in the stressed and some other forms: persigo, persiguió.^[1]

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. 5, 191
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seguir
4. ^ 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. perseguir
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 4961
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. perseguir
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2553
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 557
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. perseguir
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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. perseguir
14. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. perseguir
15. ^ 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. perseguir
16. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 188
17. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1209
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 233
19. ^ a b Ramos y Duarte, Félix (1895), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Imprenta de Eduardo Dublán, p. 400
20. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 233
21. ^ 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. perseguir
22. ^ 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. perseguir
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 820
24. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. perseguir