potentado

Forms

potentado m (plural potentados, feminine potentada, feminine plural potentadas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin potentātus, a learned word.^[2][3][4] In classical Latin the word meant “power, dominion”, and it is formed from Latin potēns (“powerful”) with the suffix -ātus.^[2][5][1] The sense “ruler” grew in Medieval Latin, where the plural meant “the mighty” and a papal letter of 1456 uses the word for a sovereign prince.^[6][7] The Latin adjective is the present participle of the verb behind Spanish poder, and Corominas lists the word among the learned words of that family, beside potente.^[3][4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese potentado, recorded before 1608, and French potentat, borrowed from Medieval Latin in 1372–1374.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the end of the 16th century, from the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[3][4] The earliest dated record in Boyd-Bowman is from the New Kingdom of Granada in 1588.^[10] Covarrubias defined it in 1611 simply as “a great lord”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades gave a narrow political sense: a prince or sovereign with absolute dominion in a province or state who takes his investiture from a superior prince, and it derived the word from Latin potentatus “principality”.^[12] In 1843 the Academy added the wider use for any monarch, prince or powerful and wealthy person.^[13] Today the DLE puts “a powerful and wealthy person” first, also in the feminine potentada, and gives the princely sense in the past tense, as a historical one.^[2][1]

Timeline

• 1588 – the first dated record, in the New Kingdom of Granada.^[10]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines potentado as a great lord.^[11]
• 1637 – a writer in Bogotá names papas, emperadores y reyes and the other potentados of the world.^[10]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a sovereign under a superior prince.^[12]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the sense “any powerful and wealthy person”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. potentatus”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tycoon or magnate: a powerful and opulent person: Un potentado de la industria compró el periódico.^[2][15][1]
2. (historical) A potentate: a prince or sovereign with independent rule over a province or state who received his investiture from a superior prince.^[2][15]

Related words

• poder
• potente
• potencia
• Latin potentātus

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. potentado
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, s.v. poder
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. poder
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. potentado
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c 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. potentado
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. 1225
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 342
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 580
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. potentado