respectar

Forms

respectar (first-person singular present respecto, first-person singular preterite respecté, past participle respectado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin respectō (“to look back at; to have regard for”).^[2][1][3] Wiktionary counts respetar as its doublet;^[1] Corominas does not separate the two: his first record of the later verb, of 1570 in C. de las Casas, is still spelt with ⟨ct⟩.^[1][3]

The Latin verb is formed re- + spectō (“to look at”), and is related to respectus (“regard, consideration”).^[1][4] The base speciō (“to see, observe”) goes back to Proto-Indo-European *spéḱyeti.^[5][1] In Medieval Latin the verb also meant “to concern”, the sense of modern Spanish.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is of 1570, in C. de las Casas, in the sense of respetar “to respect”.^[3] A text of 1650 from Michoacán still uses it so, of a priest a quien respectaba la ciudad “whom the city respected”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to concern” appears in a Mexican text of 1746, por lo que respecta a españoles, mestizos, y mulatos “as regards Spaniards, mestizos and mulattoes”.^[7] The Academy's dictionaries of 1817, 1869 and 1884 gave only “to respect”, but in 1899 it gave the Latin etymology and the sense “to concern, pertain, relate to”.^{[8][9][10][11]} Román, in Chile, objected that the dictionary did not say that the verb was defective, used almost only in the third persons respecta and respectan.^[12] The Academy's 2001 dictionary still put “to respect” first; the current one lists “to concern” first and marks “to respect” as obsolete.^[13][2]

Timeline

• 1570 – first record, in C. de las Casas.^[3]
• 1650 – a text from Michoacán uses it for “to respect”.^[7]
• 1746 – a Mexican text has por lo que respecta a.^[7]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records it as the same as respetar.^[8]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the sense “to concern”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To concern or relate to, mostly in the third person and in por lo que respecta a, en lo que respecta a “as regards”: En lo que respecta al precio, aún no hay acuerdo.^[2][14][1]
2. (transitive, obsolete) To respect (respetar).^[2][1]

Related words

• respecto
• respetar
• respeto
• respectivo
• Latin respectō

Usage notes

Por lo que respecta a is a prepositional phrase meaning “as regards”.^[13] The verb is used almost only in the third person, respecta and respectan.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. respectar
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 739
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. respeto
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c d 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. respectar
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 758
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 678
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 868
12. ^ a b Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 101
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. respectar
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. respectar