piedad

Forms

piedad f (plural piedades)^[1] Old Spanish wrote piedat and, very often, piadat or piadad.^[2][3] In the Cantar de mio Cid the word has three syllables.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish piedat, inherited from Latin pietās (“dutiful respect; piety; pity”).^[3][5][1] The variant piadad, very frequent throughout the Middle Ages, is the source of piadoso.^[3][6] The noun is formed from Latin pius (“dutiful, devout”) + -tās,^[7][1] and de Vaan traces the adjective to Proto-Italic *pwījo-, from Proto-Indo-European *puH-io- (“purifying”).^[8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese piedade, Galician piedade, Catalan pietat, French pitié and Italian pietà.^[9][10] The inherited French form means “pity”, beside the learned piété for “piety”.^[11] Spanish pitanza “ration, food given as alms”, recorded from 1131, goes back to a derivative of the same Latin noun and first meant “piety”.^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has Los vassallos de mio Cid sin piedad les davan “the Cid's vassals struck at them without pity”.^[12][3] In the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) piadat is a son's love for his father or mother in need.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses piadat for the virtue of devotion and compassion and for pity or mercy.^[13] Nebrija's Vocabulario gives piadad with Latin clementia and misericordia.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines piety as the virtue that moves one to revere and serve God, one's parents and one's country, and gives “mercy, pity” as a second sense.^[15]

The Academy's dictionary of 1869 recast the first sense as tender devotion to holy things and compassion for one's neighbour, and added the sense of a painting or sculpture of the Virgin holding the dead Christ,^[16] which had not been in its 1843 edition.^[17] Medieval Latin already used pietas for such an image.^[18] The monte de piedad, a charitable pawnshop, is in Covarrubias.^[19][6]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has sin piedad “without pity”.^[12][3]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita uses piadat for filial love.^[12]
• 1220–1250 – the adjective piadoso is first recorded.^[3]
• 1251 – the verb apiadar is first recorded.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has piadad for Latin clementia and misericordia.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias mentions the monte de piedad.^[19]
• 1617 – despiadado “pitiless” is first recorded.^[3]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense of a Pietà.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin pietas.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. piety: the virtue that inspires devotion to holy things out of love of God, and acts of love and compassion out of love of one's neighbour.^[5][1]
2. Deep love and respect for one's parents and for things worthy of veneration: piedad filial.^[5][21]
3. pity, mercy, compassion: Los soldados no tuvieron piedad de los prisioneros.^[5][1]
4. (art) A Pietà: a painting or sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ taken down from the cross.^[5][21]

Word family

• piadoso
• apiadar
• despiadado

Related words

• pío
• impiedad
• pitanza
• Latin pietās
• French piété

Usage notes

Monte de piedad is a charitable institution that lends money on pledges at low interest.^[6] The female given name Piedad comes from Nuestra Señora de la Piedad, a title of the Virgin Mary.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. piedad
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pío
4. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 388
5. ^ 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. piedad
6. ^ a b c 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. 578
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6485
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pietas
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ 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. piedad
13. ^ 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. piedad
14. ^ a b 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. piedad
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 265
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 604
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 562
18. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
19. ^ 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. 1213
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 829
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. piedad