realidad

Forms

realidad f (plural realidades)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin reālitās, formed from Late Latin reālis (“real, actual”) with the suffix -tās.^[2][3][4][1] That adjective is from Latin rēs (“thing”), whose plural meant “things, reality, nature”.^[2] The Spanish word can also be analysed as from Spanish real + -idad.^[1]

DICCA-XV, however, derives the 15th-century word from real “royal”, a sense it has in one early text (see below), while other texts of the same time already have the sense “reality, truth”.^[5][6] The same Medieval Latin word gave Catalan realitat and French réalité.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to Oudin's dictionary (1607).^[2][3] The CDH has it two centuries earlier.^[6] In Juan Alfonso de Baena's poems (1406–1435, in a copy of about 1465) a king is praised for his grant realidad, together with his franqueza “generosity” and realeza “royalty”, which DICCA-XV relates to real “royal”.^[6][5] The sense “truth, reality” is found in Mose Arragel's translation and glosses of the Bible of Alba (1422–1433), la rrealidat del mandamiento diuino “the truth of the divine commandment”, and in Enrique de Villena's glosses on the Aeneid (1427–1428), segúnd la realidat “according to what really happened”.^[6] The earliest copy that is not later than the text is the record of the Cortes of Toledo of 1436, which speaks of the rrealidad e verdad delos proçesos “the reality and truth of the proceedings”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Oudin (1607) already recorded the phrase en realidad de verdad “in actual truth”, and Autoridades defined the word as the physical and real existence of a thing and as “truth, sincerity”.^[2][9] The phrase is found in the Americas from 1551, in Guatemala and Yucatán.^[10] The Academy kept these two senses until the 1884 edition, which still glossed realidad as “truth, ingenuousness, sincerity”.^[11][12] The modern dictionary has instead the sense “what is effective and practical, as opposed to the fanciful”, and the computing term realidad virtual.^[13] In philosophy the word also names the essence of a thing, apart from its appearance.^[14]

Timeline

• 1406–1435 – Juan Alfonso de Baena's poems (in a copy of about 1465) use realidad of a king.^[6]
• 1422–1433 – Mose Arragel's Bible of Alba: la rrealidat del mandamiento.^[6]
• 1426 – first year in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[15]
• 1436 – the Cortes of Toledo: rrealidad e verdad.^[6]
• 1551 – first record in the Americas, la realidad de la verdad, in Guatemala.^[10]
• 1607 – Oudin records the word and en realidad de verdad; the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines it as “physical and real existence”.^[9]
• 1817 – the Academy lists en realidad “in fact”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. reality: the real and actual existence of something.^[13][1]
2. truth: what really happens: La realidad es que nadie lo sabía.^[13][14]
3. What is effective and practical, as opposed to the fanciful and illusory: Tienes que volver a la realidad.^[13][14]
4. (philosophy) The essence of a thing, apart from its appearance.^[14]

Word family

• realidad virtual

Related words

• real
• realizar
• realismo
• Latin reālitās
• French réalité

Usage notes

En realidad means “actually, in fact”, and the older en realidad de verdad “in very truth”.^[13][9] Realidad virtual is a computer-generated simulation of real scenes, and Wiktionary also lists realidad aumentada “augmented reality”.^[13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 4, 803
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. real
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 593
5. ^ 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. realidad
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. realidad
7. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. realitat
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. réalité
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. realidad
10. ^ 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. realidad
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 731
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 901
13. ^ 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. realidad
14. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. realidad
15. ^ 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. realidad