regalía

Forms

regalía f (plural regalías)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin rēgālis (“royal, of a king”).^[2][1] DICCA-XV takes it instead from the substantivised rēgālia (“things belonging to the king”).^[3] Du Cange records Medieval Latin regalia for royal right and dignity, and also for the king's fiscal rights, royal levies and the insignia of royalty.^[4] Corominas lists the word among the learned members of the family of rey, beside real, the inherited outcome of the same Latin adjective.^[5][6][7]

The Latin adjective is formed from the stem of rēx (“king”) with the suffix -ālis.^[8][1] The same learned word is Galician regalía and Portuguese regalia.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hits in the CDH, from 1347 to the 1390s, are letters and ordinances of the kings of Aragon and the ordinances of Zaragoza and Barbastro.^[9] The first, a letter of Peter IV of 1347, complains of harm done to the royal crown and to nuestras regalias “our royal rights”, and later documents pair the word with derechos “rights”.^[9] Corominas dated it only from 1640, in Saavedra Fajardo as cited by Autoridades, and DICCA-XV has its first record in 1417.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

In 1817 the Academy gave three senses: a prerogative of the sovereign, such as coining money; figuratively, a privilege anyone enjoys; and the perquisites some office workers receive on top of their pay.^[10] The 1899 edition added the privilege the Holy See granted kings in matters of church discipline, mostly in the plural, and gave the etymology from Latin regalis.^[11]

In Cuba the word named sizes of cigar: Domínguez lists regalía imperial, regalía común and media regalía, and Suárez a large cigar.^[12][13] The economic sense, a share of income or a fixed sum paid to the owner of a right for permission to use it, is now in the Academy's dictionary, with a Mexican sense for an author's share of a publisher's sales.^[2][14] Santamaría records it for the sums paid to landowners in oil contracts in Nicaragua and Colombia, and quotes Alfaro's dictionary of anglicisms, which equates it with English royalty.^[15] DAMER gives it for authors' and composers' royalties in many countries of the Americas, and for the payment to the nation, department or municipality that owns land under oil or mining contracts in Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia.^[16]

A sense “gift” is found in the Canaries in 1780, and today in Central America, the Antilles and Colombia; a Puerto Rican novel of 1935 has Esta tarde prepararon las regalías “this afternoon they prepared the treats”.^[17][2][18] In the Dominican Republic and Chile it is also the extra pay an employee receives at the end of the year.^[16][19]

Timeline

• 1347 – a letter of Peter IV of Aragon speaks of the king's regalias.^[9]
• 1417 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[3]
• 1640 – Saavedra Fajardo, the first record Corominas knew, cited by Autoridades.^[5]
• 1664 – the first record from the Americas, in Tucumán, where Indians are exempt from the derecho de la regalía.^[20]
• 1780 – in the Canaries, regalía is a gift of money to a master builder.^[17]
• 1817 – the Academy defines the sovereign's prerogative, a privilege and an employee's perquisites.^[10]
• 1846 – Domínguez records regalía as the name of Cuban cigars.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the privilege granted by the Holy See and the etymology.^[11]
• 1935 – the sense “gift, treat” in a Puerto Rican novel.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A prerogative that a sovereign exercises in the kingdom or state by virtue of supreme power, such as minting coins: Batir moneda era una regalía del rey.^[2][21][1]
2. (by extension) A privilege or exemption that someone enjoys in any field.^[2][21][1]
3. Perquisites that some employees receive in addition to their salary.^[2][21]
4. (historical, chiefly in the plural) A privilege the Holy See granted to kings in matters of church discipline.^[2][21]
5. (economics) A royalty: a share of the income, or a fixed sum, paid to the owner of a right for permission to exercise it: La editorial le paga regalías cada semestre.^[2][1][16]
6. (Mexico) An author's share of the publisher's income from the sales of the work.^[2]
7. (Central America, Colombia, Dominican Republic) A gift (regalo).^[2][16][19]
8. (Dominican Republic, Chile) An extra payment an employee receives at the end of the year.^[16][19]
9. (Cuba) A large size of cigar.^[13]

Word family

• regalista
• regalismo

Related words

• real
• rey
• regio
• Latin rēgālis

Usage notes

Regalía de aposento was a kind of tax paid by house owners at court in exchange for exemption from lodging the servants of the royal household and the troops.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. regalía
3. ^ a b c 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. regalía
4. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. 7, 85
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 900
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rey
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 647
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. rēgālis
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. regalía
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 742
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 855
12. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1485
13. ^ a b Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 449
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. regalía
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 341
16. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. regalía
17. ^ a b 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. regalía
18. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. regalía
19. ^ a b c Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. regalía
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. regalía
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. regalía