resolver

Forms

resolver (first-person singular present resuelvo, first-person singular preterite resolví, past participle resuelto)^[1] Old texts also write ressolver and have the participle resoluido beside the modern resuelto.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin resolvō (“to loosen, undo; to dissolve”), a learned word like the rest of the Spanish family of solvō (“to loosen”).^[3][4][5][1] Wiktionary notes that it was already a learned borrowing in Old Spanish resolver.^[1] The BDELC dates it to about 1440 and the DCECH cites it from A. de la Torre and Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary of 1490.^[4][3]

In Latin the verb is formed with re- (“back; again”) and meant “to untie, loosen” and “to pay back”, from Plautus on.^[6][7] The simple verb is itself a compound of se- (“away”) and -luō (“to loosen”).^[7][1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese resolver, recorded since the 14th century, Catalan resoldre, Italian risolvere and French résoudre.^[8][9][1] The French verb was shaped after the old verb soudre (“to pay”) and replaced an earlier borrowing of 1370.^[10] The English word resolve is a cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Historia troyana (1376–1396), where the sirens resueluen sus cantos con marauelloso son “give out their songs with wonderful sound”.^[2] Most early examples are medical: bodies aminguados et resoluidos “diminished and dissolved”, a vapour that se resuelue del cuerpo “is given off by the body”, and bad humours that turn into deadly illnesses in López de Ayala's book on hawking (1386).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin–Spanish and Spanish–Latin dictionaries give both “to untie” and the medical use, “to disperse a humour”.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 explains the verb as reducing what has been said in many words to a decision in few, and the reflexive as the dissolving of a swelling;^[12] resolución is the decision taken in a matter.^[12] The sense “to decide” appears in Mexico City in 1531, and medical uses about swellings in the Americas from 1576.^[13]

Autoridades puts “to decide, determine” first, with a quotation from Solís's history of New Spain: Como no habia quien mandasse, resolvian todos y ninguno executaba “as there was nobody in command, everyone decided and nobody carried out”.^[14] The Academy gave the etymology in 1884, and in 1899 added “to find the solution of a problem”, which is now the first sense of the DLE.^[15][16][5] The DLE also records the senses “to decide the result” (of a match), the medical one and the musical one.^[5]

In popular speech of the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Paraguay the verb means to sort out one's money problems, and in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela also to have a casual affair.^[17]

Timeline

• 1256–1265 – DEMel lists the form se resuelva from the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X.^[18]
• 1376–1396 – the earliest hit in the CDH, in Fernández de Heredia's Historia troyana.^[2]
• 1386 – López de Ayala's Libro de la caça de las aves uses the reflexive of humours turning into illnesses.^[2]
• c. 1440 – the BDELC's date, from A. de la Torre.^[4][3]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin resolvo and the medical resolver umor.^[11]
• 1531 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, in the sense “to decide”.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as summing up many words in a few.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin resolvere.^[15]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense “to find the solution of a problem”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To solve a problem, a doubt or a difficulty (also pronominal): Nadie supo resolver el acertijo.^[5][1]
2. To decide; to form a firm intention to do something: Resolvieron salir al amanecer.^[5][1]
3. To decide the outcome of something: Un penalti resolvió la final.^[5]
4. To reduce something to less than was thought or feared (also pronominal): La tormenta se resolvió en cuatro gotas.^[5]
5. (medicine) To make a tumour or an inflammation disappear (also pronominal).^[5]
6. (music) To carry out a resolution, the passage from one chord to another.^[5]
7. (little used) To dissolve or break up something (also pronominal).^[5]
8. (obsolete) To sum up, recapitulate.^[5]
9. (reflexive) To make up one's mind to do something: Por fin se resolvió a llamarla.^[5]
10. (Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Paraguay, popular) To sort out one's money problems.^[17]

Related words

• resolución
• resoluto
• solver
• absolver
• disolver
• solución
• Latin resolvō
• English resolve

Usage notes

The verb is irregular like mover: the stressed forms have ue (resuelvo, resuelve), and the past participle is resuelto.^[1][5]

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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. resolver
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 23
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. absolver
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. resolver
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. resolver
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. resolver
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ 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. resolver
12. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b 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. resolver
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 595
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. 927
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 868
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. resolver
18. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. resolver