reducir

Forms

reducir (first-person singular present reduzco, first-person singular preterite reduje, past participle reducido)^[1] Old Spanish wrote reduzir, with preterite forms such as reduxo.^[2] Autoridades still spells the preterite reduxe.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin redūcō (“to lead back, bring back”), taken from Latin as a learned word.^[4][5][6][1] The Latin verb is formed from re- (“back”) and dūcō (“to lead”).^[7][8][9]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese reduzir, Catalan reduir, French réduire and Italian ridurre.^[10][1] The French verb was taken from Latin around 1175 and reshaped after conduire.^[11]

The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *doukō, from the root Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to draw, pull”), which is also the source of English tow.^[1][12] Spanish has a whole series of learned verbs from its compounds, among them aducir, conducir, deducir, inducir, introducir, producir, seducir and traducir.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is in the Castigos that it dates 1293, where the passions of the soul are said to reduçen “come down to” twelve.^[2] A document of Charles II of 1350 orders anything done against a monastery to be reduzir al primer estado, “brought back to its first state”, which is the Latin sense “restore”.^[2] Juan Ruiz uses it for leading people back to good memory and conduct, and Juan Fernández de Heredia in the late 14th century for bringing a people back under royal rule.^[2] Corominas dates the verb from about 1440, in Juan de Mena.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The first meanings were all Latin: to lead back, to restore to a former place or state, and to bring back to obedience.^[2][3] Bénaben notes that the verb later took the narrower sense of bringing something to a lower or simpler state.^[8] Autoridades already records turning one thing into an equivalent one, especially a lesser one, and changing one coin for another.^[3] The 1843 Academy dictionary lists the senses “lessen, narrow”, “sum up”, “break into small pieces”, “subdue” and “persuade”, and later editions added surgery (setting a broken or dislocated bone), mathematics, logic and chemistry.^[13][14][15]

Modern dictionaries put “lessen” first and add the culinary sense of boiling a sauce down.^[16][6] In Chile, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay reducir is used for dealing in stolen goods.^[17]

Timeline

• 1293 – the CDH's earliest hit, in the Castigos (Madrid, BNM ms. 6559).^[2]
• 1350 – a Navarrese document uses reduzir for “restore to the former state”.^[2]
• 1376–1396 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses reduzir in his translations.^[2]
• 1438 – the date of first record in Corominas's Breve diccionario.^[5][18]
• c. 1440 – Juan de Mena, the DCECH's first record.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin redigo and reduco as its equivalents.^[19]
• 1525 – the first record from the Americas, in Panama, for reducing a royal tax.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives the reflexive reduzirse the sense “be convinced, return to better order”.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades notes the irregular forms reduzco and reduxe.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin reducere.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bring something back to the place or state it had before.^[6]
2. To reduce, lessen or cut down: Han reducido el horario de la biblioteca.^[6][1]
3. To narrow or tighten.^[6]
4. To change something into an equivalent thing, usually a smaller or lesser one: reducir a cenizas “burn to ashes”.^[6][8]
5. To change money into other coins.^[6]
6. To sum up (resumir) a speech or account in a few words.^[6]
7. To break a body into small pieces.^[6]
8. To include or arrange under a certain number or quantity; also reflexive.^[6]
9. To subdue (someter) by force someone or something that resists: Los guardias redujeron al ladrón.^[6][23]
10. To persuade or win someone over with arguments.^[6]
11. (cooking) To boil a liquid down so that it thickens.^[6][16]
12. (logic) To turn an imperfect figure of a syllogism into a perfect one.^[6]
13. (mathematics) To simplify an expression; to express a quantity in units of another kind, as hours in minutes.^[6]
14. (surgery) To set a broken or dislocated bone, or put back a hernia.^[24][23]
15. (chemistry) To remove oxygen from a body, or make an atom gain electrons.^[24]
16. (Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay) To buy and sell stolen goods.^[17]

Word family

• reducible
• reducción
• reducido

Related words

• aducir
• conducir
• producir
• reducto
• Latin redūcō
• French réduire

Usage notes

Reducir is conjugated like conducir: reduzco, reduje, redujera.^[1][3] Chilean speakers and some older authors also used regular preterites such as reducí and reduciera, which Román criticised.^[25]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. reducir
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 533
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 61
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. aducir
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. reducir
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 598
8. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. reducir
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. redūcō
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5516
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. réduire
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 619
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 664
15. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1430
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. reducir
17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. reducir
18. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 645
19. ^ 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. reducir
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. reducir
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1251
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 909
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. reducir
24. ^ 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. reducir
25. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 50