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resistencia

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word resistencia

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1376–1391 Juan Fernández de Heredia, Gran crónica de España More words from the 14th century
Borrowed from
Latin resistentia
Ultimate origin
Latin sistō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin resistentia
French résistance
Spanish resistencia
From the same root
English resistance ← resistentia

Pronunciation

  • /resisˈtenθja/, [re.sisˈt̪ẽn̟.θja], /resisˈtensja/[1]

Forms

resistencia f (plural resistencias)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin resistentia (“resistance, opposition”).[2][1] Lewis and Short record the Latin word as a late one, used by Augustine in place of repugnantia.[3] It is formed from resistēns, the present participle of resistō, with the suffix -ia.[1][4] The verb is re- + sistō, and its first sense was “to halt, stop”.[5]

Corominas treats the noun as a derivative of resistir, which he takes from the same Latin verb; he lists it with authors of the 15th century such as Santillana and Pérez de Guzmán, and Nebrija.[6] His shorter dictionary dates it c. 1525, and DICCA-XV also calls it a derivative of the verb.[7][8] The verb itself appears c. 1440, first in the form registir in Pero Tafur.[6]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese resistência, Catalan resistència, French résistance and Italian resistenza.[4][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España (1376–1391): no trobauan qui les fizies resistencia nenguna “they found no one to put up any resistance”.[10] Heredia's translations of Orosius, Plutarch and Thucydides use the word in the same military sense.[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 defines the word as the force and opposition we put up against something, and Autoridades as the action of resisting.[12][13] Terreros separates the military sense, the defence against an attacker, from resistance to evil inclinations and passions.[14] The Academy added the mechanical senses in 1884: a cause that opposes the action of a force, and a force that opposes the motion of a machine.[15] In 1917 Alemany records resistencia pasiva for friction and similar losses in a machine.[16]

The 20th century added electrical resistance and the resistor, resistance in psychoanalysis and the organised underground opposition to an occupying power or a dictatorship.[2] Moliner notes that the last sense spread after the Second World War.[17] In medicine it also names the capacity of a microorganism to withstand a drug.[18]

Timeline

  • 1376–1391 – the first record in the CDH, in Heredia's Gran crónica de España.[10]
  • 15th century – Santillana and Pérez de Guzmán, as Corominas lists them.[6]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin repugnantia and resistentia.[19][8]
  • 1527 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.[20]
  • 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “resistance”.[21]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias defines it.[12]
  • 1884 – the Academy adds the mechanical senses.[15]
  • 1917 – Alemany records resistencia pasiva.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act of resisting or of resisting oneself; resistance.[2][1]
  2. The capacity to resist; endurance, stamina; the strength of a material.[2][1]
  3. The people who, usually in secret, fight an occupying force or a dictatorship; the resistance movement.[17][2]
  4. (psychoanalysis) A patient's refusal to recognise unconscious impulses or motives.[2]
  5. (electricity) The opposition of a circuit to the passage of a current, and its magnitude, measured in ohms.[2][1]
  6. (electricity) A resistor: a component placed in a circuit to change the current or to produce heat.[2][1]
  7. (physics) A force that opposes the action of another force.[2]
  8. (mechanics) A force such as friction that hinders a machine's motion and reduces its useful work.[2]

Usage notes

Resistencia pasiva means a reluctance to do or carry out something.[2] Capitalised, Resistencia is also the capital of the Argentine province of Chaco.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. resistencia
  3. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 659
  5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 824
  7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. resistir
  8. ^ 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. resistencia
  9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2901
  10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. resistencia
  11. ^ 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. resistencia
  12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1261
  13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. resistencia
  14. ^ 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, 356
  15. ^ 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. 926
  16. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1449
  17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. resistencia
  18. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. resistencia
  19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 409
  20. ^ 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. resistencia
  21. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 205

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Resistencia.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/resistencia. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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