resultar

Forms

resultar (first-person singular present resulto, first-person singular preterite resulté, past participle resultado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin resultō (“to spring back, rebound”).^[2][3][1] The CDH has it from 1417, in Enrique de Villena, much earlier than the BDELC's first record of 1570, in Cristóbal de las Casas.^[4][5][2] Medieval Latin already used the verb for “to result”, beside “to resist”.^[6][7]

The Latin verb is a frequentative of resiliō (“to jump back”), or a formation from re- and saltō (“to dance, jump”); both go back to saliō (“to jump, leap”).^[8][1][9] García de Diego derives the popular Old Castilian and Aragonese resotar (“to jump”) and retozar (“to frolic”) from the same Latin verb.^[10] The same Latin verb was taken as Italian risultare and French résulter.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Enrique de Villena uses the verb in Los doze trabajos de Hércules (1417) and his later treatises in the sense “to arise, follow from”: in his Tratado de Astrología (1428), what results from two opposites joined together nin es lo uno nin lo otro “is neither the one nor the other”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The physical Latin sense survived only in dictionaries: Nebrija glossed Latin resulto as resurtir “to rebound”, and the Diccionario de Autoridades put first “to strike somewhere after being thrown off elsewhere”, then “to arise from something by chance” and “to remain to be arranged”.^[5][12] The Academy's edition of 1817 added “to redound to someone's benefit or harm”, which the DLE still puts first.^[13][3]

The modern verb is above all a near-copula, “to turn out, prove to be”, and impersonal resulta que “it turns out that” is very common;^[14][15] Santamaría calls it a filler of familiar speech.^[3][14][15] In colloquial Spain it can also mean “to be attractive, look good”.^[1][3]

Timeline

• 1417 – Enrique de Villena uses rresulta in Los doze trabajos de Hércules.^[4]
• 1488 – the first record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[16]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses Latin resulto as resurtir.^[5]
• 1529 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[17]
• 1570 – Cristóbal de las Casas's dictionary, the DCECH's first record.^[2][18]
• 1607 – resulta and resultado are first recorded.^[2]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds “to redound to someone's benefit or harm”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin resultare.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) Of a thing, to redound, end in someone's benefit or harm.^[3]
2. (intransitive) To arise or follow from something else: La inundación resultó de las lluvias de abril.^[3][14]
3. (intransitive) To appear, show itself or prove to be: El examen resultó más fácil de lo previsto.^[3][1]
4. (intransitive) To become.^[3]
5. (intransitive) To work out, have an outcome: El plan no resultó.^[3][1]
6. (intransitive) To rebound, spring back.^[3][14]
7. (intransitive, colloquial) To please; of a person, to be attractive.^[3][1]

Word family

• resulta
• resultado
• resultante
• resultón

Related words

• saltar
• retozar
• Latin resultō
• Italian risultare

Usage notes

Resulta que “it turns out that” introduces a fact or a story;^[14][1] de resultas de means “as a result of”.^[14][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 Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. resultar
3. ^ 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. resultar
4. ^ 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. resultar
5. ^ a b c 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. resultar
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. resultare
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 610
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. resultō
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. saliō
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. resultare
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 661
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 601
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 759
14. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. resultar
15. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 938
16. ^ 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. resultar
17. ^ 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. resultar
18. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 141
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 929