recordar

Forms

recordar (first-person singular present recuerdo, first-person singular preterite recordé, past participle recordado)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write rrecordar; the reflexive recordarse “to remember” was common in the 15th and 16th centuries.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin recordor (“to call to mind, remember”); Old Spanish recordar has the same form.^[3][4][5][1] The Spanish verb is a popular word, not a learned borrowing.^[6]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese recordar, Galician recordar, Asturian recordar, Catalan recordar, Occitan recordar and Italian ricordare.^[1] Corominas adds Sardinian regordare of Logudoro.^[3][1] Latin distinguished meminisse “to remember” from this verb, which meant “to recall with effort”, while “to remind” was memorare.^[3] The Romance languages blurred these, and French and Portuguese chose other verbs for the general sense.^[3]

The Latin verb is formed from re- (“back, again”) and cor (“heart, mind”), with a verbal suffix.^[7][1] The noun for “heart” goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱerd- (“heart”), the source also of Ancient Greek καρδία (kardía) and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍄𐍉 (hairto).^[8]

Corominas separates the old sense “to come round, wake up” from the memory sense.^[4][9] He groups it with Old Spanish acordar “to come to one's senses”, made from acordado (“sensible”), itself Latin cordātus (“sensible, wise”) from the same Latin noun for “heart”.^[10][9] DICCA-XV likewise gives the sense “to wake” its own entry, derived from that verb, while the DLE gives a single entry.^[11][5] In turn acordarse “to remember”, a Castilian innovation, was modelled on this verb from the beginning of the 13th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), in the sense “to come round”: after the assault in the oak wood of Corpes, „Van recordando don Elvira e doña Sol, abrieron los ojos” “Doña Elvira and Doña Sol come round and open their eyes”.^[12][13][9] The sense “to keep in mind” appears in Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236): a good saying, once heard, „recordávala siempre, non la querié perder” “he always kept it in mind and did not want to lose it”.^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

Already in Berceo the verb takes as object the person reminded, as in „el dicho de las bodas í te lo recordó” “he reminded you of the saying at the wedding”.^[3] Corominas calls this causative use a Romance novelty, unknown to the Latin verb.^[3] The reflexive recordarse was frequent in the 15th and 16th centuries: Nebrija distinguishes recordarse (Latin memini) from recordar a otro (memoro); later the literary language came to prefer the transitive construction, while the reflexive lives on in popular speech.^[3][11]

The sense “to wake up” was general in the old language: Alfonso X's Estoria de España has a man who „recordó” when water was thrown in his face.^[14][12] In 1611 Covarrubias gave it as the first sense, before recordarse “to remember”, and the Autoridades still listed it as a figurative use.^[15][16] It is now an archaism in Spain, recorded in Asturias, León and the Canaries and in many American countries, where it is rural and dated.^[17][18] Bayo called it an archaism preserved in America.^[19]

In several countries of the Americas recordarse is used for acordarse “to remember”.^[18] Today the verb also means “to remind” and “to resemble, call to mind”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses recordando for “coming round”.^[12][9]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Santo Domingo uses the verb for keeping something in memory.^[3][12]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's prose tells the reader to keep in mind what is written.^[14]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for “to wake up”, the first record without a later copy.^[12]
• c. 1250 – first record of the noun recuerdo, in the Libro de Apolonio.^[3][4]
• 1438 – first record of recordación.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija separates recordarse “to remember” from recordar a otro “to remind”.^[3]
• 1520 – a letter from Santo Domingo uses recordar for waking a sleeper, the first record from the Americas.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives “to wake someone who sleeps” as the first sense.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. recordari” and puts “to bring to memory” first.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also intransitive) To remember, recall something from the past: Ya no recuerdo dónde dejé las llaves.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To bear something in mind: Recuerda que mañana hay examen.^[5]
3. (transitive) To remind someone of something.^[5][1]
4. (transitive) To resemble or evoke someone or something: Su voz me recuerda a la de mi abuela.^[5]
5. (intransitive, also pronominal, rare; regional) To wake up.^[5][18][1]
6. (pronominal, Latin America) To remember, as acordarse.^[18]

Word family

• recordación
• recordatorio
• recuerdo

Related words

• acordar
• cuerdo
• corazón
• Latin recordor
• English record

Usage notes

The set phrase si mal no recuerdo “if I remember rightly” softens a statement.^[5] With de, recordarse de and recordar de are proscribed by Wiktionary's usage notes but common in speech.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. recordar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 826
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. recordar
5. ^ 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. recordar
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. recordar
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acordar
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 42
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. recordar
12. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. recordar
13. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. recordar
14. ^ 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. recordar
15. ^ 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. 1250
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 525
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. recordar
18. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. recordar
19. ^ Bayo, Ciro (1910), Vocabulario criollo-español sud-americano, Madrid: Hernando, p. 198
20. ^ 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. recordar
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 907