resentimiento

Forms

resentimiento m (plural resentimientos)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish resentirse + -miento, with the suffix of action nouns.^[1][2][3] Corominas dates the verb to 1605, in Don Quixote, and the noun to about 1625, in Gonzalo de Céspedes.^[4][5][6] The verb is built on sentir, which continues Latin sentiō (“to perceive, feel”).^[4][7]

Baralt saw French influence in the verb;^[8] Corominas finds this doubtful, or at most short-lived.^[4] The noun has close parallels in French ressentiment, Italian risentimento and Catalan ressentiment, which Terreros and Echegaray set beside it.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is in Bernardino de Mendoza's Teórica y práctica de guerra of 1595, which says that unpaid soldiers go over to the enemy sin resentimiento del faltar en la fidelidad que deven “without any qualm at failing in the loyalty they owe”.^[11] Here the word means a feeling of regret or scruple, not yet a grudge.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the early 17th century the word already named the sense of grievance left by an offence: in 1617 Suárez de Figueroa's El pasajero calls on friends for the debido resentimiento of a wrong, that is, the vengeance it called for.^[11]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gave it two senses: literally, the sign that something is cracking or giving way, with the Latin fissura and rima; and, figuratively, the displeasure or complaint that an offensive word or act leaves behind.^[12] Terreros described it as a painful memory of an injury, and kept the physical sense of “the beginning of a crack”.^[9] Domínguez added a medical sense in 1846, a weak return of a pain or fever that had passed.^[8] From 1899 the Academy defined it only as the action and effect of resentirse.^[13][3] Moliner and Vox describe it today as a lasting, restrained feeling of having been wronged, with hostility towards the person blamed.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 1595 – earliest CDH hit, in Bernardino de Mendoza's Teórica y práctica de guerra, meaning “qualm, regret”.^[11]
• 1605 – the verb resentirse appears in the Quijote.^[4][5]
• 1617 – Suárez de Figueroa uses it of the grievance that calls for revenge.^[11]
• c. 1625 – Corominas's first record, in Gonzalo de Céspedes.^[4][5]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the literal sense “sign of cracking” and the figurative sense “grievance”.^[12]
• 1779 – first record from the Americas, in the Río de la Plata.^[16]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it as the action and effect of resentirse.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. resentment, grudge: a lasting bitter feeling towards someone held responsible for an offence or harm: Nunca superó el resentimiento contra su antiguo socio.^{[3][14][15][1]}
2. (obsolete) A sign that something is cracking or giving way.^[12][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
3. ^ 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. resentimiento
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 208
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sentir
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 703
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b 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, 1503
9. ^ a b c 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, 355
10. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 157
11. ^ 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. resentimiento
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 592
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 867
14. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. resentimiento
15. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. resentimiento
16. ^ 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. resentimiento