potencialidad

Forms

potencialidad f (plural potencialidades)^[1]

Etymology

Wiktionary takes it as borrowed from Medieval Latin potentiālitās, a learned word of scholastic philosophy, and the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the same Latin word as its equivalent.^[1][2] Terreros remarked that this Latin word was not found in good Latin.^[3] The DLE, following the Academy's dictionary since 1884, explains it instead as a Spanish derivative of potencial, an adjective recorded since 1256 in the CDH.^[4][5][6] Corominas lists it, without a date, among the learned words of the family of poder.^[7][8]

The Spanish adjective goes back to Late Latin potentiālis, and through potencia to Latin potentia (“power”).^[8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is Alonso Fernández de Madrigal's Libro de las paradojas (1437, in a 15th-century copy), which explains that a man, once he is a man, is no longer en potencialidad to be a man, but is still in potentiality to be white or black or learned.^[9] The word thus entered Spanish as a term of Aristotelian philosophy, the capacity of a thing to become something it is not yet.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th and 16th centuries the word stayed in philosophical and theological prose: El Tostado used it again in his Libro de amor e amicicia, and a Mexican colloquy of after 1566 says that God has no passive potentiality.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave two senses, the mere capacity of potency independent of the act, and the equivalence of one thing in the virtue or efficacy of another, both still in the DLE.^[2][4] Moliner adds a third, everyday sense “power, potential” (la potencialidad industrial), and the Spanish American records of the 20th century mostly use it of economic or creative capacity.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 1437 – El Tostado writes potencialidad in the Libro de las paradojas (15th-century copy).^[9]
• c. 1450 – the first record without a later copy, in the Castilian translation of Yehudah Halevi's Kuzari.^[9]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it with two senses.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from potencial.^[5]
• 1930 – the first record from the Americas, in Ecuador.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (philosophy) potentiality: the capacity of potencia considered apart from the act (acto).^[4][10][1]
2. The equivalence of one thing to another in virtue and effect.^[4][10]
3. potential, power: El informe subraya la potencialidad agrícola de la región.^[10][12]

Related words

• potencial
• potencialmente
• potencia
• poder

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 341
3. ^ 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, 190
4. ^ a b c d 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. potencialidad
5. ^ 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. 855
6. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. potencial
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, s.v. poder
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. poder
9. ^ 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. potencialidad
10. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. potencialidad
11. ^ 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. potencialidad
12. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. potencialidad