requerir

Forms

requerir (first-person singular present requiero, first-person singular preterite requerí, past participle requerido)^[1] Old Spanish texts have both the diphthong of querer (requiere, requiero) and forms with i (requiran, requiro, requirida), and requirir still appears beside requerir in Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492.^[2][3][4] The Diccionario de Autoridades already notes that the verb takes ie in some forms of the present (yo requiero, requiera); Moliner conjugates it like hervir.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish requerir, inherited from Latin requīrō (“to seek again, look for; to ask, demand”).^[6][7][1] Corominas treats it as one of the derivatives of querer and calls it general in every period of the language.^[6] García de Diego starts from Vulgar Latin *requaerere, remade on the simple verb, which would explain the ⟨e⟩ and the diphthong it shares with that verb.^[8] Cunha and Nascentes set up the same form for Portuguese.^[9][10] Vox and DICCA-XV, on the other hand, treat the Spanish verb as a 13th-century borrowing from Latin.^[11][4]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese requerer and Italian richiedere;^[12] French requérir is a remodelling, after guérir, of Old French requerre, which the DHLF also derives from the Vulgar Latin form.^[13] Catalan requerir is a borrowing from Latin.^[14]

That verb is formed from Latin re- + quaerō (“to seek, ask”).^[15][1] De Vaan derives the simple verb from Proto-Italic *kwaise-, and that from Proto-Indo-European *kweh₂-i- (“to acquire”).^[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is requiran “they will seek” in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century manuscript), a biblical paraphrase: e requiran a so Sennor e a David so rey “and they will seek their Lord and David their king”.^[3][2] Corominas dates the verb from Berceo (1220–1250), who uses it for “to look after, inspect”: the shepherd keeps his eye open to requerirlas, the sheep.^[6][17][3] Lanchetas glosses Berceo's uses as “to ask for, gather, seek”.^[18]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the verb means “to examine”, “to demand”, “to call to account” and “to call (someone)”.^[19] The Latin sense “to seek” lived on into the 14th century: Juan Ruiz advises his reader to requiere a menudo a la que bien quisieres “seek out often the woman you love”.^[20]

Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary already separates requerir amonestando “to summon, warn”, requerir de amores “to court” and the general requerir (Latin requiro).^[4][21] Covarrubias in 1611 defines it as “to notify, warn” and explains requerir de amores as declaring one's love to a lady;^[22] requerimiento was already a legal term for a formal summons.^[22] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives the legal sense first, then “to examine the state of something” (from the Quijote) and “to need, be necessary”.^[23] The five senses of the Academy's 1843 edition are still, in the same order, those of the DLE.^[24][25][7]

In today's language the commonest use is “to need, call for”, often in the impersonal se requiere.^[5][11] The construction requerir de “to be in need of” is established in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay, and in Cuba the verb also means “to scold”.^[26]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – requiran in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, known from a 13th-century copy.^[3][2]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, the first record for Corominas.^[6][17]
• 1254–1260 – first use in Alfonso X's prose, in the sense “to examine”.^[19]
• 1261 – first record in the Old Spanish texts of the HSMS archive.^[27]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija lists requerir amonestando, requerir de amores and requerir.^[4][21]
• 1526 – first record in the Americas, at Santa Marta: le requirieron que se fuese “they required him to leave”.^[28]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it in English as “to require, to warn”.^[29]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains requerir de amores and requerimiento.^[22]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, Latin requirere.^[25]

Meanings

Verb

1. (law) To notify someone of something, or order them to do it, by public authority: El juzgado lo requirió para que pagara la multa.^[7][5]
2. To examine the state or condition of something.^[7][5]
3. To need or require; also intransitive with de: Este trabajo requiere mucha paciencia.^[7][11][1]
4. To court someone, to declare one's love, especially in requerir de amores.^[7][5]
5. To induce or urge someone to do something.^[7][5]
6. (Cuba) To scold someone.^[26]

Word family

• requerimiento
• requeridor
• recuesta

Related words

• requisa
• requisar
• requisición
• requisito
• querer
• inquirir
• adquirir
• Latin quaerō
• Portuguese requerer
• French requérir

Usage notes

Requerir is an irregular verb conjugated like hervir: requiero, requirió, requiriendo.^[5][23] The noun requerimiento is the formal summons of the law courts, already so in Covarrubias.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. requerir
3. ^ 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. requerir
4. ^ 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. requerir
5. ^ a b c d e f g Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. requerir
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 717
7. ^ 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. requerir
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. requerir
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2899
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. requerer
11. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. requerir
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. requérir
14. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. requerir
15. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
17. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. adquirir
18. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 664
19. ^ a b 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. requerir
20. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 371
21. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 408
22. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1260
23. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 589
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 631
25. ^ 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. 924
26. ^ 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. requerir
27. ^ 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
28. ^ 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. requerir
29. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 205