reflejo

Forms

reflejo m (plural reflejos)^[1] As an adjective it has the feminine refleja.^[2] The Academy's first dictionary spelt the word reflexo, as noun and adjective; the 1817 edition has reflejo.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin reflexus (“a bending back, retreat”), a noun formed from reflectō (“to bend back; to turn the mind back to something”).^[5][6][2] Gómez de Silva traces the Latin noun to the past participle of the same verb, which is made of re- (“back”) and flectō (“to bend, twist”).^[7] The Latin participle meant “bent or curved back”.^[8]

The same Latin word gave Italian riflesso, French réflexe and the English reflex.^[9] Corominas counts it with reflexión, inflexión and circunflejo among the learned words of the Latin verb, and notes that they are late in Spanish: none is in Cervantes's Quijote or in the dictionaries of the Golden Age.^[5] In 1708 Tosca tried in vain to introduce a verb reflectir; the language preferred reflejar, first recorded in the Academy's dictionary of 1817, and physics later took the anglicism reflectar.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Diccionario de términos médicos dates the word in Spanish from 1508.^[10] Corominas finds it first in Góngora, at the start of the 17th century, and notes that the Academy's first dictionary quotes it only from Agustín de Salazar (died 1675).^[5][6] That quotation uses the noun for light thrown back from a body: No sus luces, sus refléxos solo es razón que te copie “it is right that I copy for you not its lights, only its reflections”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1737) has the noun for reflected light and the adjective for what turns back as opposed to what is direct, and for knowledge formed by thinking a thing over to understand it better.^[3] Its definitions passed to the 19th-century editions.^[4][11] An early record from the Americas speaks of the reflections of the sun on sandy ground in New Granada in 1683.^[12]

Bénaben dates to the 19th century the use of the word in physiology, for an involuntary nervous response, as in reflejo condicionado “conditioned reflex”.^[13] The Academy added this sense in 1899, with the grammatical verbo reflejo “reflexive verb”.^[14] The Chilean lexicographer Román noted that the figurative sense “sign, faithful image of something” was missing from the dictionary, and quoted it from Menéndez Pelayo; the DLE now has it.^[15][2] In the plural it has come to mean a person's capacity to react quickly.^[2][16]

Timeline

• 1508 – first record in Spanish, according to the Diccionario de términos médicos.^[10]
• early 17th century – Góngora uses the word, Corominas's first record.^[5][6]
• 1683 – the reflections of the sun are mentioned in New Granada, the first record from the Americas.^[12]
• 1737 – Autoridades records the noun and the adjective, spelt reflexo.^[3]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary has the spelling reflejo and the verb reflejar.^[4][6]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the physiological and grammatical senses and the etymology from Latin reflexus.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. reflection: light that is reflected from a surface: El reflejo del sol en la nieve molesta a los ojos.^[2][1]
2. An image of someone or something reflected in a surface such as a mirror (espejo) or water.^[2][16]
3. Something that shows or reproduces another thing: Su casa es el reflejo de su carácter.^[2][16]
4. (physiology) A reflex, an involuntary response to a stimulus (estímulo).^[2][17][1]
5. (in the plural) The ability to react quickly and effectively.^[2][16]

Adjective

1. Reflected: luz refleja.^[2][16]
2. Of knowledge or thought: formed by reflecting on something in order to understand it better.^[2][3]
3. Of a movement, a secretion or a feeling: produced involuntarily in response to a stimulus.^[2]
4. Of a pain: felt in a part of the body other than the one where it arises.^[16][10]
5. (grammar, dated) Of a verb: reflexive (reflexivo).^[14][18]

Word family

• reflejar
• reflejo condicionado

Related words

• reflectar
• reflexión
• reflexivo
• reflector
• flexible
• flexión
• inflexión
• circunflejo
• Latin reflectō

Usage notes

The phrases reflejo condicionado “conditioned reflex” and reflejo incondicionado “unconditioned reflex” are terms of psychology.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. reflejo
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. s.v. reflexo
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 740
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 916
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. flexible
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 620
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 854
15. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José
16. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. reflejo
18. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org