populoso

Forms

populoso (feminine populosa, masculine plural populosos, feminine plural populosas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin populōsus (“full of people”), a post-classical adjective formed from populus (“people”) with the suffix -ōsus.^[2][1][3][4] Corominas lists it among the learned words in his article on pueblo, the inherited word from the same Latin noun.^[5] De Vaan traces that noun to Proto-Italic *poplo- (“army”), whose origin is unknown.^[6]

The same Latin adjective gave Catalan populós, Portuguese populoso, French populeux and Italian popoloso.^[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old Spanish Textual Archive first finds it in the Sinodal de Aguilafuente, printed at Segovia in 1472.^[10] Corominas's earliest authors are Alonso de Palencia and Guevara.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias defined the word as “a place of many people” and connected it with the Latin word for people.^[11] Autoridades applied it to a province, city, town or village with many inhabitants, quoting a chronicle by Valera that calls one region the most fertile and populous in the world.^[12] The Academy added an obsolete sense “settled, full” in 1817, and Salvá a poetic sense “thick with branches and leaves”.^[13][14] Moliner notes its use for city districts crowded with working-class people.^[15] In Leonese it can describe a person who is plump and healthy-looking.^[16]

Timeline

• 1472 – the Sinodal de Aguilafuente uses the word.^[10]
• 1558 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico, of populosos reinos “populous kingdoms”.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records it.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades quotes Valera's chronicle.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the obsolete sense “settled, full”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Latin populosus.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a country, city, town or place: populous, densely populated: Vive en un barrio populoso de la capital.^[2][15][1]
2. (obsolete) Settled; full.^[2]

Related words

• pueblo
• popular
• población
• Latin populus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. populoso
3. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 673
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
9. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto
10. ^ 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
11. ^ 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. 1222
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 323
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 690
14. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
16. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León
17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 849