refracción

Forms

refracción f (plural refracciones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin refractio (“a breaking back”), a learned word.^[2][3][1] Corominas lists it under fracción, with refringir and refractar, from refringō (“to break up, break back”), a derivative of frangō (“to break”).^[3][4] VOX dates the borrowing to the 17th century and gives the Latin sense as “turning back”, especially of a ray of light.^[5] The DHLF notes the Late Latin sense “reflection of a ray of light”, and that in the 18th century the French word spread in physics under the influence of Newton's English refraction.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese refração, Catalan refracció, French réfraction and Italian rifrazione.^[7][8][6][1]

The Latin verb “to break” goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰreg- (“to break”) with a nasal infix.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in Fernando de Herrera's Comentarios a Garcilaso of 1580, which says that something is produced by the refracciones de la lumbre del sol “refractions of the sunlight”.^[10] This is sixty years earlier than Corominas's first record, in Saavedra Fajardo (1640).^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

From the first records the word described light bent by a medium: Malón de Chaide in 1588 explained the rainbow by the refraction of the sun's rays in the clouds, and Pedro Ambrosio Onderiz's translation of Euclid's optics (1585) wrote refración.^[10] Autoridades defined it as a term of dioptrics, the bending of a ray passing into a medium of different density, quoting Saavedra's oar that looks broken under water, and added astronomical refraction.^[11] The Academy later defined it as the action of refracting, and recorded doble refracción, the doubling of images by certain crystals, from 1899.^[12][13][2] Modern definitions speak of any wave changing direction when it passes obliquely into another medium.^[14][5]

Timeline

• 1580 – first record, in Herrera's Comentarios a Garcilaso.^[10]
• 1585 – the form refración in a translation of Euclid's optics.^[10]
• 1640 – Saavedra Fajardo, Corominas's first record.^[3][4]
• 1716 – first record from the Americas, in Guatemala.^[15]
• 1737 – Autoridades defines it as a term of dioptrics and records astronomical refraction.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary records doble refracción.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. (physics) refraction: the act and effect of refracting (refractar), the change in direction of a ray of light or other wave as it passes obliquely from one medium into another: la refracción de la luz en un prisma.^[2][14][1]

Related words

• refractar
• refringir
• refractario
• fracción
• Latin refractio

Usage notes

Doble refracción is the property of certain crystals of doubling the images of objects;^[2][16] ángulo de refracción and índice de refracción are set terms of optics.^[2][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. refracción
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 939
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fracción
5. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. refracción
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. réfraction
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2865
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. refracció
9. ^ 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. frangō
10. ^ 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. refracción
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 540
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. 911
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 854
14. ^ 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. refracción
15. ^ 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. refracción
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. refracción