redundancia

Forms

redundancia f (plural redundancias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin redundantia (“overflow, superfluity”).^[2][3][1] The Latin noun is formed on redundāns, the present participle of redundō (“to overflow”), which is made of red- (“back, again”) and undō (“to surge”), from unda (“wave”).^[4][5][1] Corominas lists it under onda with redundar (1438) and redundante, but gives it no date.^[6]

Learned borrowings of the same Latin word are Catalan redundància, French redondance and Italian ridondanza, and English redundancy belongs with them.^[7][8]

De Vaan derives the Latin word for “wave” from Proto-Indo-European *ud-ōr (“water”), the root of Greek ὕδωρ (húdōr) and of English water;^[9][1] Wiktionary calls the details uncertain.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old Spanish Textual Archive first has the word in Los tratados del doctor Alonso Ortiz, printed in Seville in 1493, and DICCA-XV dates it 1494.^[10][3] Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 had glossed Latin redundantia with Spanish reboso “overflow”, which is the first sense of the word.^[3] The earliest hit of the CDH, from Francisco de Osuna before 1540, speaks of the glory of the soul overflowing into Christ's body at the Transfiguration.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the word named an overflow or excess of something: of milk in a 1551 anatomy, of food and drink in a 1580 book on childbirth, of spiritual delight in Saint John of the Cross.^[11] Autoridades in 1737 gave three senses: excess of anything, excess in any line, and in rhetoric a fault of style from superfluous words.^[12] Terreros referred it to perisología and pleonasmo, and Baralt in 1855 warned writers against this vice, even in the classics.^[13][14]

The Academy's editions from 1843 to 1899 kept only the first sense, but the current dictionary again has the repetition of a word or idea, and adds a sense from information theory: the repetition in a message that lets it be rebuilt after part is lost.^[15][2][16]

Timeline

• 1492 – Nebrija glosses Latin redundantia as reboso.^[3]
• 1493 – first record, in Los tratados del doctor Alonso Ortiz.^[10]
• before 1540 – Francisco de Osuna uses it of the glory of the soul.^[11]
• 1567 – Pedro Núñez uses sin falta ny redundancia in his algebra.^[11]
• 1737 – Autoridades records the rhetorical sense, the fault of superfluous words.^[12]
• 1791 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin redundantia.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. excess, superfluity; an overabundance of anything.^[2][16]
2. The needless repetition or use of a word or idea; redundancy, tautology: Decir “salir afuera” es una redundancia.^[2][16][1]
3. (information theory) The repetition of information in a message that lets its content be rebuilt when part of it is lost.^[2][16]

Related words

• redundar
• redundante
• abundancia
• onda
• Latin redundantia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. redundancia
3. ^ a b c d 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. redundancia
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. redundantia
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 598
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. onda
7. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 95
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 645
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. unda
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. redundancia
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. redundancia
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 534
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, 313
14. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 600
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 619
16. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. redundancia
17. ^ 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. redundancia
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 853