profesor

Forms

profesor m (plural profesores, feminine profesora, feminine plural profesoras)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin professor (“one who professes an art or science; teacher”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin agent noun is formed on professus, the past participle of profiteor (“to declare publicly; to profess, to teach”), which is prō- with fateor (“to confess, acknowledge”).^[2][5][6] Corominas treats it with profesar and profesión in his article on confesar, which comes from the same Latin verb family.^[2]

In Latin the noun named a person who claimed expertise in an art or science, a teacher;^[6][7] Lewis and Short call it post-Augustan.^[6][7] The same learned word is Portuguese professor, Galician profesor, French professeur and Italian professore.^[8][1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Alonso de Palencia, 1490.^[2][3] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has a single occurrence, in a text it dates to 1385.^[10] The early sense is “one who professes something”: in 1587 a Franciscan in Puebla is a profesor de tan estrecha pobreza “professor of such strict poverty”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defines professor as one who practises or teaches publicly a faculty, art or doctrine, with quotations on the professors of medicine.^[12] Terreros, in the 1780s, has the doctor or master who teaches the arts and sciences from a university chair, and also the person learned in a faculty.^[13] In the Americas there are a profesor en el arte de pilotaje in Santo Domingo in 1724 and a professor for each class in Peru in 1788.^[11]

The Academy added the feminine profesora in 1843, with three senses: one who practises a science or art, one who teaches it, and one who studies it.^[14][15] The sense “student” was still listed in 1869 and was gone in 1884, when the definition became a person who practises or teaches a science or art.^[16][17] Today the word names any teacher, especially in Spain, as well as a university professor, and also a musician in an orchestra.^[1][18] It is often clipped to profe.^[1] It was borrowed into Tagalog as propesor.^[1]

Timeline

• 1385 – a single occurrence in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[10]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1587 – in Puebla, profesor de tan estrecha pobreza, of a friar.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades: one who practises or teaches publicly a faculty, art or doctrine.^[12]
• 1788 – in Peru, a professor for each class who teaches a course every semester.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy spells it profesor.^[19]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the feminine profesora.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin professor.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who practises or teaches a science or art; a teacher: Mi profesora de piano vive en el tercer piso.^[4][18][1]
2. A professor, a member of a university's teaching staff.^[1]
3. A musician who plays in an orchestra or ensemble.^[18][20]

Word family

• profesorado
• profesoral

Related words

• profesar
• profesión
• profesional
• confesar
• Latin professor

Usage notes

The feminine is profesora.^[1] Spain has ranks such as profesor adjunto and profesor agregado.^[4] In Guatemala, Argentina and Uruguay a profesor secundario teaches in a secondary school, and in Bolivia and Chile a profesor guía supervises a student's thesis.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 174
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. profesar
4. ^ a b c 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. profesor
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 573
6. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. professor
7. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. professor
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. professor
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 271
10. ^ 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. profesor
11. ^ a b c d 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. profe
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 395
13. ^ 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, 221
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 591
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 885
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 635
17. ^ 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. 869
18. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. profesor
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 707
20. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. profesor
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. profesor