promontorio

Forms

promontorio m (plural promontorios)^[1] Enrique de Villena's translation of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442) has the spelling premuntorio.^[2] Dialect forms with a different first syllable are recorded: tremontorio in Santander, tromontorio in Castile and tresmontorio in Asturias.^[3]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin prōmontōrium (“headland, promontory”), first recorded in 1490.^[4][5][6][1] Corominas treats it among the derivatives of monte, and Vox counts it in the same etymological family.^[4][5][7] García de Diego notes that the word is a Latinism in Castilian.^[3]

The Latin word is also spelt prōmunturium and prōmuntorium.^[8][9] Its formation is not clear.^[1] The first element is the prefix prō- (“forward”), and the second is usually taken to be mōns (“mountain”), with the ⟨u⟩ explained by vowel reduction; the spelling with -torium seems to be later than that with -turium.^[1][10] The OLD and Lewis & Short instead connect it with prōmineō (“to jut out”), the OLD through association with the word for “mountain”.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record without a later copy is in Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish vocabulary of 1490, in a Latin passage on the battle at the promontory of Actium.^[2][5] Earlier, Enrique de Villena (1427–1428) glossed premuntorio Sigeo as a mountain, and Alfonso Martínez de Toledo (before 1444, in a 16th-century copy) listed the cities, islands, mountains, rivers and promontorios of the world.^[2] In 1492 Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary rendered Latin promontorium as “a cape of land over the sea”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1737) defined the word as any considerable height of land, gave the figurative sense of anything bulky that gets in the way, and sent the geographical sense to cabo “cape”.^[12] Terreros put the headland first, as a point of land or rock running into the sea, with any hill or very bulky thing as a second sense.^[13] The Academy kept the three senses through the 19th century, with the headland under cabo until Alemany (1917) defined it as a height of land that runs out into the sea.^[14][15][16]

Records from the Americas begin in 1532 in Mexico, and the chroniclers of Santo Domingo use the word for capes and points of the coast.^[17] Medicine uses it for bony and other prominences, such as the sacral promontory and the promontory of the tympanic cavity.^[18]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena writes premuntorio in his glosses on the Aeneid (copy of 1442).^[2]
• 1490 – first record, in Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario.^[2][5][19]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses promontorium as a cape of land over the sea.^[11]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[17]
• 1737 – Autoridades gives the senses “considerable height of land” and “bulky obstruction”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin promontorium.^[14]
• 1917 – Alemany defines it as a height of land running out into the sea.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A considerable elevation of land; a hill.^[6][20]
2. A headland or promontory: high land that runs out into the sea: Desde el promontorio se veía toda la bahía.^[6][1]
3. (figurative) Anything that makes too big a heap and gets in the way.^[6][20]
4. (anatomy) A bony or other prominence, as the sacral promontory or the promontory of the middle ear.^[18]

Related words

• monte
• cabo
• Latin prōmontōrium

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. promontorio
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. promontorium
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 131
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. monte
6. ^ 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. promontorio
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. promontorio
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. prōmunturium
9. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. promontorio
11. ^ a b 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. promontorio
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 400
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, 224
14. ^ 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. 870
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 816
16. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1377
17. ^ 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. promontorio
18. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. promontorio
19. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 608
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. promontorio