reino

Forms

reino m (plural reinos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote both reino and the older regno.^[2][1][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin regnum (“kingship; kingdom”), at first in the Latinising form regno.^[2][1][4] García de Diego explains the form with ⟨ei⟩ by the influence of rey.^[5] Nascentes suggests the same for Portuguese reino.^[6] The same Latin word is Galician reino, Asturian reinu, Catalan regne, French règne and Italian regno.^[1][7] The French word is a learned remaking of an older popular form.^[8]

The Latin noun is derived from rēx (“king”).^[9][10][1] De Vaan reconstructs the Latin word for “king” as Proto-Indo-European *h₃rēǵs (“ruler, king”), with cognates in Old Irish and Sanskrit.^[10] The verb reinar, first regnar, was taken from regnō in the same way.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) the word appears in cerca viene el plazo por el reino quitar “the time limit for leaving the kingdom is drawing near”.^[3][2] Corominas also cites the Fuero de Guadalajara and a text of 1219; the Libro de Alexandre has regno.^[2] The first record in a contemporary manuscript is the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), which speaks of a land with tres rregnos.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X used it for a kingdom with its people, for any real or imaginary space in which something acts, and for the period of a king's rule.^[11] The last use, now covered by reinado, was condemned by Baralt in 1855.^[12] The phrase regnos de los cielos appears in Alfonso's laws.^[11] Autoridades defined the word as one or more provinces subject to a king, noted the older regno, and added the vassals of a king and the deputies who spoke for the realm in the Cortes.^[13]

The 1884 Academy dictionary added the three “kingdoms” of nature, animal, vegetable and mineral, and the DLE now also gives the taxonomic rank of biology.^[14][15][16] The figurative sense of a domain or field (el reino de la fantasía) is in Moliner and the DLE.^[17][15]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has reino.^[3][2]
• 1219 – a dated record in Corominas.^[2]
• c. 1223 – rregnos in the Semejanza del mundo, the first record in a contemporary manuscript.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X writes el regno de Murcia.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses reino with Latin regnum.^[18]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[19]
• 1855 – Baralt rejects reino in the sense “reign”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the kingdoms of nature.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kingdom: a state whose political form is a monarquía.^[15][1]
2. Each of the territories of a state that once formed a kingdom of its own: el antiguo reino de León.^[15]
3. (historical) The body of deputies who represented the kingdom with its powers and spoke in its name.^[15][13]
4. A realm, field or domain proper to an activity (campo).^[15][1]
5. Each of the great divisions of natural things: reino animal, vegetal, mineral.^[15]
6. (biology) The taxonomic rank of the same name, grouping phyla such as plants, animals or fungi.^[15][16]

Related words

• regir
• reina
• rey
• reinar
• reinado
• Latin regnum
• French règne

Usage notes

Reino de Dios and reino de los cielos are the kingdom of God and heaven.^[15][11] Reino de taifas names the small kingdoms of al-Andalus after the fall of the caliphate of Córdoba and, figuratively, a state of disorder.^[4] The proverb en el reino de los ciegos, el tuerto es el rey is the Spanish form of “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 900
3. ^ 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. reino
4. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. reino
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. regnum
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. reino
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. reinu
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c d Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. reino
12. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. s.v. reino
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. reino
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 915
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. reino
16. ^ 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. reino
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. reino
18. ^ 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. reino
19. ^ 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. reino