regeneración

Forms

regeneración f (plural regeneraciones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin regenerātiō (“a being born again”), a word of Church Latin.^[2][1][3] The Latin noun comes from regenerō (“to beget again”).^[3][1][4] DICCA-XV and Corominas place it in the family of gignō (“to beget”), and Corominas lists regenerar, regenerador and the noun among the learned words beside the semi-learned engendrar.^[5][6][7]

The same Latin word is Catalan regeneració, French régénération, Italian rigenerazione and Portuguese regeneração.^[8][1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (dated 1246–1252 in the CDH, known from an 18th-century copy) uses it for the resurrection at the Last Judgement: creo la postremera regeneración quando buenos e malos prendrán el gualardón “I believe in the last regeneration, when the good and the wicked will receive their reward”.^[10][11] In Latin the word meant spiritual rebirth, and lavacrum regenerationis was baptism.^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

Translations of about 1400 use it for spiritual rebirth: one who was not born according to Adam cannot be reborn according to Christ, and a convert's baptism makes the saint a father of rregeneraçion spiritual “spiritual rebirth”.^[10] Autoridades still defined it as a new or second generation, used only in the moral sense.^[13]

From the late 18th century it was used of nature and of politics: in Mexico in 1794 of insects whose regeneration could be prevented, in Bogotá in 1809 of a hoped-for rejeneración feliz “happy regeneration” of the country.^[14] Alemany's dictionary of 1917 added the zoological sense, the power of some animals to renew destroyed parts of their body, which the DLE now gives as a sense of biology.^[15][2] Medicine uses it for the repair of injured cells, tissues or organs.^[16]

Timeline

• 1246–1252 – Berceo's Milagros speak of the postremera regeneración “last regeneration”.^[10]
• c. 1400 – Barlaam e Josafat uses it for spiritual rebirth through baptism.^[10]
• 1411–1412 – Saint Vincent Ferrer's sermons.^[10][5]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary renders regeneratio as engendering again.^[5]
• 1494 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[5]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades restricts the word to the moral sense.^[13]
• 1794 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, of insects.^[14]
• 1809 – a political sense in Bogotá.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it as the action and effect of regenerar.^[17]
• 1917 – Alemany adds the zoological sense.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. The action and effect of regenerar, to regenerate: the restoring or renewal of something that had decayed or was damaged: La regeneración del barrio atrajo a nuevos vecinos.^[2][18][1]
2. (biology) The rebuilding by a living organism of its own lost or damaged parts.^[2][16]
3. (medicine) The repair or restoration of injured cells, tissues or organs.^[16]

Related words

• regenerar
• generación
• engendrar
• Latin regenerātiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. regeneración
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. regeneratio
4. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 299
5. ^ 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. regeneración
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 623
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. engendrar
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. regeneració
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. regeneração
10. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. regeneración
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. regeneración
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. regeneratio
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5
14. ^ a b c 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. regeneración
15. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1433
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. regeneración
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 856
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. regeneración