presidir

Forms

presidir (first-person singular present presido, first-person singular preterite presidí, past participle presidido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin praesidēre (“to sit in front; to guard; to preside over”).^[2][3][1][4] The Latin verb is formed from prae- (“before, in front”) and sedeō (“to sit”), with the vowel of the compounds.^[5][1][4] The simple verb goes back to *sedēō and the root *sed- (“to sit”).^[1][6] Vox places the word in the family of sentar.^[7]

The same Latin verb gave Catalan presidir, Portuguese presidir, French présider and Italian presiedere.^[8][9][1] Nascentes calls the Portuguese word semi-learned.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC dates the verb 1607, and DICCA-XV reports 1613 for the DCECH, but both are late.^[2][11] The CDH has presidió in Martínez de Toledo's life of Saint Isidore (before 1444, in a 16th-century copy): Allí en aquel conçilio presidió sanct Gregorio “there, in that council, Saint Gregory presided”.^[12] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has the verb in Zaragoza prints of 1491 and 1494, and DICCA-XV dates its first record 1494.^[13][11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias defines it as being present in an assembly with authority and precedence, and the Diccionario de Autoridades as holding the first place in a meeting, congregation or court, with a second, academic sense: a master assisting from the chair the student who defends a thesis.^[14][15] Domínguez in 1846–1847 adds the figurative “to be what predominates, what underlies all the rest”.^[16] The DLE keeps four senses: to hold the chief place in a body or act, of a thing to occupy the most prominent place, to predominate, and the old academic sense.^[3] Moliner notes that presidir is used where authority is exercised more by presence than by activity, and dirigir elsewhere.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1270 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses the Latin title presides of Roman governors, not yet the verb.^[12]
• a. 1444 – presidió in Martínez de Toledo, in a 16th-century copy.^[12]
• 1491 – in the Zaragoza print of Sánchez de Arévalo's Espejo de la vida humana.^[13]
• 1494 – first record in DICCA-XV.^[11]
• 1587 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[18]
• 1607 – the BDELC's date of first record.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses of the assembly and of the master in the chair.^[15]
• 1846–1847 – Domínguez records the figurative sense “to predominate”.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold the first or most important place, or the chief authority, in an assembly, tribunal, board, company or ceremony; to preside over, to chair: El alcalde presidió el pleno de ayer.^[3][17][1]
2. Of a thing: to occupy the most prominent place: Una foto de los abuelos preside el salón.^[3][17]
3. To predominate (predominar), to be the main influence on something.^[3][7]
4. (dated) Of a teacher: to assist from the chair a student performing an academic exercise.^[3][15]

Word family

• presidente
• presidencia

Related words

• presidio
• sentar
• Latin praesideō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. presidir
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. presidir
4. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 567
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. presidir
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. presidir
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. presidir
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. presidir
11. ^ a b c Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. presidir
12. ^ 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. presidir
13. ^ 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, p. s.v. presidir
14. ^ 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. 1228
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 366
16. ^ a b 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, 1419
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. presidir
18. ^ 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. presidir
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. 861