reiterar

Forms

reiterar (first-person singular present reitero, first-person singular preterite reiteré, past participle reiterado)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin reiterō (“to repeat”).^[2][3][4][5] The Latin verb is formed with re- on the commoner iterō (“to repeat”), itself from the adverb iterum (“a second time”).^[2][6][7] The simple verb iterar has always been very rare in Spanish.^[2]

Corominas sees a possible inherited doublet in Galician rendar (“to dig the vines a second time”), which he explains by dissimilation and the influence of a further word.^[2] He finds a second one in edrar (“to dig the vines a second time”), which Autoridades records for La Rioja.^[2] García de Diego likewise derives vedrar (“to dig a second time”), of Álava, from the Latin verb.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pedro de Cuéllar's Catecismo of 1325, known from a copy of 1472, says that penance, unlike baptism, can be repeated: la penitençia bien se reitera o doblará, lo que non es en el baptismo “penance may well be repeated or doubled, which is not so in baptism”.^[8] An earlier example in Berceo's Milagros (847b) is doubtful, since it is found in only one manuscript and the other's text seems corrupt.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Corominas dated the word from 1605, in the Quijote; he notes that Oudin has it and that Autoridades quotes Lope and Jacinto Polo, but that it is missing from Palencia, Nebrija, Percyvall and Covarrubias and foreign even to Góngora's vocabulary.^[2] In the Golden Age it was a word of very literary style; it has since become common, above all in set formulas, but remains foreign to everyday speech.^[2] The courtesy formulas of letters are an example.^[9]

Autoridades defined it as to do or repeat something again.^[10] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 gave the Latin etymology and noted pronominal use.^[11] In the Americas it is found from 1545, in a Peruvian legal document.^[12]

Timeline

• 1325 – Pedro de Cuéllar's Catecismo (in a copy of 1472) uses it of penance.^[8]
• c. 1430–1460 – the Cancioneros of Paris have plañir e reyterar las culpas “to lament and repeat one's sins”.^[8]
• 1440–1460 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[13]
• 1493 – the Tratados of Alonso Ortiz, printed in Seville.^[14]
• 1545 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru.^[12]
• 1605 – the Quijote, the first record Corominas knew.^[2][3]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades quotes Jacinto Polo and Lope.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the pronominal use.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To say or do something again; to repeat, reiterate: El portavoz reiteró que no habría cambios.^[4][1]
2. To reaffirm or renew a statement or decision, often in courtesy formulas: Le reitero mi agradecimiento por su ayuda.^[9][1]
3. (pronominal) To reaffirm oneself in something said or held: Se reiteró en su negativa.^[4][15]

Word family

• reiteración
• reiterativo

Related words

• iteración
• iterar

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 859
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. reiterar
4. ^ a b c 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. reiterar
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. reiterare
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. reiterar
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. reiterar
8. ^ 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. reiterar
9. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. reiterar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 555
11. ^ 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
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, p. s.v. reiterar
13. ^ 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. reiterar
14. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. reiterar
15. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. reiterar