precio

Forms

precio m (plural precios)^[1] Old Spanish wrote precio, preçio, prescio and presçio;^[2][3][4] prezo occurs only as a variant in a manuscript of the Fuero Juzgo.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pretium (“price, value; reward”), taken over in a semi-learned form; Old Spanish precio is recorded from the end of the 10th century.^[3][5][6][1] Corominas finds the learned sound of the word surprising, because every other Romance language kept it in a popular form.^[3] He considers a preliterary *priezo later remodelled on the Latin, but rejects it: medieval texts, down to Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija, always write a voiceless ⟨ç⟩, never ⟨z⟩.^[3] García de Diego also calls it a learned word.^[4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese preço, Galician prezo, Catalan preu, Occitan prètz, French prix, Italian prezzo and Romanian preț.^[7][4][1] Its doublet prez “honour, glory” is Old Occitan pretz, recorded from the poem of the Cid on.^[3][5][1]

De Vaan traces the Latin noun to *preti-o- “exchange value”, from Proto-Indo-European *preti (“against”), an e-grade beside the *proti of Sanskrit प्रति (práti, “towards; against”) and Ancient Greek προτί (protí, “towards”); he sees no viable alternative.^[8][1] Bénaben considers the origin of the Latin word uncertain.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Glosas Silenses precio translates Latin premium, so the oldest recorded sense is “reward, prize”.^[3] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) has the sense “price, fare”: Jonah finds a ship bound for Tarsis, e dio so precio e entro en ella “and he paid his fare and went aboard”.^[10] The Cortes of León of 1208 speak of goods carried por precio “for payment”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From the earliest texts the word had several shades: “honour, esteem” in the Libro de Alexandre, “fame” and “prestige” in Berceo, and “value”.^[3] The sense “reward, prize” lasted from the 10th century to the classical writers;^[3] Cervantes still uses it in the Persiles for the prize of a race.^[3] The Academy kept “prize won in the jousts” as a sense, and the DLE still lists it.^[6][11]

Alfonso X's prose already uses it for the money value of a thing (an emerald de muy grant precio), for esteem, for what one party to a contract gives in exchange, and for wages.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 explains ser cosa de precio as “to be highly esteemed”.^[13] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds the phrases abrir precio “to set the first price in a sale” and tener en precio “to value”.^[11] In 1855 Baralt rejected al precio de in a figurative sense as a Gallicism, recommending a costa de.^[14] Today the DLE gives the figurative sense “the effort, loss or suffering that something costs”.^[6]

Central America and the Andes have many jocular phrases for “very cheap”, such as a precio de huevo in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.^[15] Spanish lent the word to Tagalog presyo, Cebuano presyo and Basque prezio.^[1]

Timeline

• Late 10th century – the Glosas Silenses gloss Latin premium with precio.^[3][5]
• 992 – a charter in Oelschläger's list of first records.^[3]
• c. 1140 – the doublet prez and the verb preciar in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[5][3]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses the word for a fare paid for passage.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario calls the emerald a stone of great price.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin pretium as its equivalent.^[16]
• 1525 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as the esteem, value or assessed price of a thing.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the literal sense “value” and the transferred sense “esteem, importance”.^[18]
• 1855 – Baralt criticises the figurative al precio de as French.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin pretium.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. price: the money value at which something is assessed: El precio del pan ha vuelto a subir.^[6][1]
2. The effort, loss or suffering that something costs, or that comes with it: Pagó un precio muy alto por su libertad.^[6][20]
3. (historical) The prize won in a joust.^[6]
4. (law) A consideration paid in money.^[6]
5. (rare) esteem, importance, credit: un hombre de gran precio.^[6][18]

Word family

• precioso
• preciar
• despreciar
• sobreprecio
• preciosidad
• despreciable

Related words

• prez
• Latin pretium
• Portuguese preço

Usage notes

Common phrases include precio fijo “fixed price, not open to haggling”, a cualquier precio “at any cost” and no tener precio “to be priceless”.^[6][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. precio
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 631
4. ^ a b c d García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5218
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. precio
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. precio
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pretium
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. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. precio
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. precio
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 696
12. ^ a b 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. precio
13. ^ 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. 1226
14. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 549
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. precio
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 400
17. ^ 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. precio
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 347
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 857
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. precio