represalia

Forms

represalia f (plural represalias)^[1] The 15th-century Castilian documents and Nebrija write represaria, often in the plural represarias and with rr- (rrepresaria); represalia appears beside it from the same century.^[2][3][4] Terreros still gives represalia and represaria as variants.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin reprensalia (“reprisals by capture”), the word the DLE and Wiktionary give as its source.^[6][1][7] The Academy's dictionary of 2001 and Moliner trace the Latin word to the past participle of Latin reprehendō (“to take back; to hold back”).^[8][9] The 1899 edition of the Academy's dictionary and García de Diego instead derived the Spanish word from French représailles.^[10][11]

Corominas doubts that a Medieval Latin source explains anything until its texts, dates and places are known, since the Latin may itself adapt a Romance word.^[3] The word belonged to maritime and international law: represalies occurs in the Catalan sea code known as the Consulate of the Sea, mostly of the 13th or 14th century, whose influence spread all over the Mediterranean, and the French word (1401) and reprisals (1447) came from that area.^[3] He also suggests that the older Castilian form represaria may be the original one, an adjective qualifying carta (“letter”) or marca, and that the ending ⟨-alia⟩ arose from it by dissimilation.^[3]

The Italian side is dated earlier: the DELI dates Italian rappresaglia to before 1348, in the chronicle of Villani, and the variant rapresaglia to 1275, at Prato.^[12] Nocentini analyses it as a Romance formation from preso (“taken by force”), with the suffix -aglia and the prefix ra-, meaning “retaking what had been taken”, first recorded in the Medieval Latin form.^[13] The DHLF and Bénaben take the Medieval Latin word as probably modelled on this Italian one.^[14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is an Aragonese inventory of 1405 that lists “un tractado de Bartol sobre las represalias”, a treatise of the jurist Bartolus on reprisals.^[3] In Castilian the word first appears in the Victorial of Gutierre Díez de Games (1431–1449, in a copy of the late 15th or early 16th century), where a captain says he could not take represarias without the king's licence and command.^[2] The sense was the seizure of goods or persons of another community in compensation for a wrong, as in a petition of 1466 asking that a town not be subjected to prendas nin represarias “pledges or reprisals”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the royal documents of the 15th century the word belongs to the law of seizure: kings grant or forbid represarias against the goods of Genoese or Venetian merchants and of neighbouring towns.^[2][3] Terreros called it a term of war, the right of princes to take from enemies what they unjustly keep.^[5] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 defined it as the seizure of property and, strictly, the right to keep enemy goods found in the kingdom when war broke out, and marked a sense “pledge” as obsolete.^[16]

Domínguez complained in 1846–1847 that the Academy left out the commonest sense, any act by which one party avenges itself on another, especially in civil wars.^[17] The Academy's 1869 edition added “the right that enemies claim to do each other equal or greater harm”, noting that the plural was more usual.^[18] Today's first sense is any punishment or revenge for an offence, besides the seizure of goods and the measures one State takes against another short of war.^[6] Moliner adds the punishment of rebels after a revolt has been put down.^[9]

Timeline

• 1405 – an Aragonese inventory names a treatise of Bartolus on represalias.^[3]
• 1431–1449 – the Victorial uses the form represarias (in a later copy).^[2]
• 1451 – represaria appears in a Castilian law.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates represarias by Latin repredatio.^[4][3]
• 1508 – a royal document of Burgos speaks of marcas represarias against the Venetians.^[3]
• 1719 – the first record in the Americas, in Costa Rica.^[19]
• 1817 – the Academy defines the right to seize enemy property at the outbreak of war.^[16]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the sense of retaliation in general.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A reprisal or retaliation: a punishment or act of revenge for an attack or offence: Lo despidieron como represalia por la denuncia.^[6][1]
2. The seizure of the property, or of the members, of a group with which one is in conflict.^[6]
3. (usually in the plural) A harsh measure that one State takes against another in answer to its hostile acts, without breaking off relations.^[6][9]

Related words

• prender
• reprender
• Medieval Latin reprensalia
• Italian rappresaglia
• French représailles

Usage notes

The word is used mostly in the plural, as the Academy has noted since 1869: tomar represalias.^[18][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. represalia
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. prender
4. ^ a b 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. represalia
5. ^ a b Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 349
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. represalia
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. represalia
9. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. represalia
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 865
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. represalia
12. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. rappresaglia
13. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. rappresaglia
14. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. représailles
15. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. represalia
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 754
17. ^ 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, 1500
18. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 675
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. represalia