portento

Forms

portento m (plural portentos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin portentum (“omen; monster, prodigy”), a learned word.^[2][1][3][4] The DLE and Moliner give the source as the participle portentus.^[2][5] The Latin noun is the neuter of the past participle of portendō (“to foretell, presage”).^[1][6][7] That verb is formed with por-, a variant of pro- (“before”), and tendō (“to stretch”), so Spanish tender belongs to the same family.^[7][8][9] Vox notes that Spanish took the word in a sense close to the Latin “monster, prodigy” rather than “omen”.^[9]

The same Latin word was borrowed as Catalan portent and Portuguese portento, the Portuguese word being recorded from about 1539.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is Enrique de Villena's translation and glosses of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442), where great people and great deeds are marked by God and nature with singular signs and portentos that foretell something to come.^[12] There the word still has the Latin sense “omen, portent”.^[12] Corominas dates the word only from 1584, in Rufo.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

In 15th- and 16th-century texts portento is mostly paired with prodigio for a strange event taken as a sign: Alfonso de Palencia (1490) contrasts the two Latin words, and Guevara and Fernández de Oviedo write of prodigios o portentos.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as any singular or great thing that causes wonder or terror through its strangeness, “within the limits of nature”, a phrase the Academy kept into the 19th century.^[13][14]

Terreros applied it both to things beyond the powers of nature and to things that are merely rare and wonderful, with the example Elena fué un portento de hermosura.^[15] The same use for a person appears in Guatemala in 1635, portento de santidad, and Domínguez added the sense “great beauty” in 1846.^[16][17] The DLE now gives a person admired for some quality as the second sense.^[2]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena uses portentos for signs foretelling the future, in his glossed Aeneid (copy of 1442).^[12]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario explains portento beside prodigio.^[12]
• 1546 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[16]
• c. 1580 – first record of the adjective portentoso, according to the BDELC; the DCECH dates it to Cervantes in 1613.^[3][4]
• 1584 – Corominas's first record, in Rufo.^[4][3]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it and gives the Latin portentum as its source.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. porténtum”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A prodigy or marvel: a thing, act or event so strange or new that it causes wonder or fear: Los cronistas contaban portentos del cielo.^[2][5][1]
2. A person admired for some quality: Su sobrina es un portento de memoria.^[2][5]

Word family

• portentoso

Related words

• tender
• prodigio
• Latin portentum

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. portento
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tender
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, s.v. tender
5. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. portento
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 560
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. portento
9. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. portento
10. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. portent
11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. portento
12. ^ 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. portento
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 332
14. ^ 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. 851
15. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 184
16. ^ 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. portento
17. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1408