replicar

Forms

replicar (first-person singular present replico, first-person singular preterite repliqué, past participle replicado)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin replicō (“to fold back, unroll; to reply”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from re- and plicō (“to fold”); it first meant “to fold back” and “to unroll” a book, and in legal Latin it came to mean “to reply”.^[5][2][6] Medieval Latin used it for “to reply”, “to repeat” and “to reopen a dispute”.^[7]

Corominas dates it only from the early 17th century, after Autoridades, and Vox gives the 17th century; the CDH and the DEMel have it already in the Vidal Mayor (c. 1250), in a legal sense, and Nebrija has it in 1492.^{[2][8][9][10][11]}

The popular outcome of the same Latin verb is replegar, a doublet, and the verb is related to plegar, the semi-learned continuation of the simple verb.^[1][12][2] The English verb replicate is a cognate.^[1]

Wiktionary traces the simple verb to *pleḱ- (“to plait, weave”), through compound verbs.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Vidal Mayor (c. 1250) one party may replicar contra the exception raised against it, and then a further reply, the triplicatión, may follow: the first sense is the legal one, “to answer the other party's plea”.^[9] A procuration of 1323 lists replicar among the acts of a legal representative.^[9]

Semantic evolution

By the late 14th century the verb also meant “to answer back” in ordinary speech: in López de Ayala's Rimado de Palacio a bishop rreplicó to an argument.^[9] Nebrija about 1495 gave Latin replico and itero “to repeat” for it.^[13] Autoridades defined it as arguing against an answer and as answering in opposition to what is said or ordered.^[14] The Academy from 1843 on also gave the legal sense of the plaintiff contradicting the defendant's answer, and the old sense “to repeat”, marked obsolete.^[15][16] The DLE now adds “to copy exactly”, and in Colombia it means to repeat an activity.^[4][17]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – the Vidal Mayor uses replicar in law.^[9][10]
• 1305 – a document from Murcia has replicar.^[10]
• c. 1378–1406 – López de Ayala's Rimado de Palacio uses it for answering back (in a mid-15th-century copy).^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin replico and itero.^[13]
• 1526 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[18]
• early 17th century – the first record according to Corominas.^[2][3]
• 1737 – Autoridades defines it as arguing against an answer.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To argue against an answer or argument.^[4][19]
2. To retort, answer back in opposition to what is said or ordered: Hizo lo que le pedían sin replicar.^[4][19]
3. To replicate, copy something exactly; also pronominal.^[4][1]
4. (law) Of the plaintiff: to file the written reply (réplica) in an ordinary lawsuit.^[4][19]
5. (obsolete) To repeat what has been said.^[4]
6. (Colombia) To repeat an activity done before.^[17]

Word family

• réplica
• replicación
• replicador
• replicante

Related words

• replegar
• plegar
• suplicar
• English replicate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 580
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. plegar
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. replicar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. replicō
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 605
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. replicare
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. replicar
9. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. replicar
10. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. replicar
11. ^ 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. replicar
12. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. replicar
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 408
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 582
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 629
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 865
17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. replicar
18. ^ 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. replicar
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. replicar