rezar

Forms

rezar (first-person singular present rezo, first-person singular preterite recé, past participle rezado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote rezar, reçar, rrezar and resar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin recitō (“to read aloud, recite”).^[5][6][7][1] The Latin verb is formed with re- (“again”) on citō (“to call forth”).^[8][1] Corominas traces the sound changes through *rezdar and *redzar to rezar, with a voiced /dz/ that the old language kept throughout, as Cáceres and the Sierra de Gata still do.^[5] García de Diego records an Old Spanish reztar.^[9] Its learned doublet is recitar.^[1][10]

Portuguese rezar has had the same history.^[5] Catalan resar and Sardinian resare, which mean only “to pray”, are borrowings from Spanish, as their sounds show.^[5] Outside Spanish and Portuguese the Latin verb has left only traces, in Old French and in Sursilvan.^[5][11]

Covarrubias thought of rēctus (“right, upright”), because one who prays must be in God's grace, and quoted El Brocense's derivation from Ancient Greek ῥέζω (rhézō, “to sacrifice”).^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the abbot don Sancho rezava los matines abuelta de los albores “was saying matins at daybreak”: already the religious sense.^[4][5] The etymological sense, “to recite, read aloud”, was common in the Middle Ages: in the Libro de Apolonio a minstrel tornóles a rezar hun romance bien rimado “recited them a well-rhymed poem”, and the Libro de Alexandre has letters rezadas “read out” before the king.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

What a simple Christian of the early Middle Ages recited most were prayers, so the verb soon narrowed to this sense, and it was used intransitively for “to pray” already in Berceo.^[5] The old sense lasted into the 16th century;^[5][14][15] Nebrija about 1495 still had rezar, pronunciar alto “to say aloud”, Latin recito, beside rezar como clerigo for a priest's prayers.^[5][14][15] It survives in literary phrases such as reza el libro “the book says”.^[5][6][16]

Covarrubias opposes rezar to cantar, saying the words of the office as opposed to singing them.^[13] In 1817 the Academy added “to grumble” and the saying bien reza, pero mal ofrece, said of one who promises much and does nothing.^[17] The intransitive rezar con “to concern, apply to” is colloquial.^[7][18] In the Canaries it means “to be on record”, and in Panama and Colombia “to cure someone of an illness with a spell”.^[19][20]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has rezava los matines (in a 14th-century copy).^[4][6]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de San Millán has reçava bien sus oras.^[4]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio uses it for reciting a poem.^[5][4]
• 1255 – the first text without a later copy, a charter of exemption: rezar a Dios.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija defines it as “to say aloud”, Latin recito.^[14]
• 1516 – the first records from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: libretas de rezar “prayer books”.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin rectus.^[12]
• 1737 – the derivative rezo is first recorded.^[6]
• 1817 – the Academy records the saying bien reza, pero mal ofrece.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin recitare.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To pray; to say prayers to God, the Virgin or the saints: Cada noche rezaba el rosario con su abuela.^[7][1]
2. (transitive) Of a cleric: to say the divine office.^[7]
3. (transitive, colloquial) Of a text: to say, read: El letrero de la puerta rezaba «Cerrado por vacaciones».^[7][1]
4. (transitive, religion) To say a mass or a prayer as opposed to singing it.^[7]
5. (intransitive, colloquial) With con: to concern, apply to: Esa norma no reza con los socios fundadores.^[7][18]
6. (intransitive, colloquial) To grumble.^[7]
7. (Canary Islands) To be on record, appear officially.^[19]
8. (Panama, Colombia) To cure someone of an illness with a spell.^[20]

Word family

• rezo
• rezador
• rezandero

Related words

• recitar
• Latin recitō
• Portuguese rezar

Usage notes

García de Diego separates a regional rezar “to persist, be in force” of Álava, which he derives from a Latin *rectiare, and admits that the line between it and the word for “pray” is unclear.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. rezar
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 375
4. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. rezar
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 903
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rezar
7. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. rezar
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5503
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 613
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7123
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. 1264
13. ^ 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. 1265
14. ^ a b c Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 409
15. ^ 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. rezar
16. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. rezar
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 764
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rezar
19. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. rezar
20. ^ 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. rezar
21. ^ 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. rezar
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 934