rudimento

Forms

rudimento m (plural rudimentos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rudīmentum (“first attempt; first lessons”), a learned word.^[2][1][3][4] The Latin noun is formed from rudis (“unwrought, untrained”) with the suffix -mentum, so it first meant the training of a beginner.^[5][6] The same Latin word gave French rudiment, first recorded in 1495.^[7] In Spanish it belongs with rudo, rudeza and erudito, which go back to the same Latin adjective.^[3][4]

De Vaan sets out two competing etymologies of the Latin adjective: a connection with Old High German grioz (“sand, gravel”), which would need the loss of an initial velar in Latin, and the derivation from the root of the word for “red”, which most handbooks prefer.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in Alfonso de Palencia's translation of La perfeción del triunfo (1459, in a copy of c. 1490), in the form rudimientos: enseñavan los primeros rudimientos de las letras “they taught the first rudiments of letters”.^[9] Juan de Lucena (c. 1492) and Nebrija's Gramática castellana (1492) speak of the primeros rudimentos of a teacher or of grammar.^[9] Corominas dated the word only from Autoridades at the end of the 17th century.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

For centuries the word was used almost only in the plural, of the first elements of learning, as in a text from Mexico City of 1594 about learning the rudimentos of the Trinity and in Mexican and New Granadan texts on the first rudiments of Latin, reading and writing.^[10] The Academy's dictionaries up to 1869 gave only the sense “beginning” and the plural “first studies of a science or profession”.^[11][12] The 1884 edition added the biological senses, an embryo and an imperfectly developed part of an organism, which the DLE still lists first.^[13][2] Medicine uses it of a vestigial organ.^[14]

Timeline

• 1459 – Alfonso de Palencia's translation of La perfeción del triunfo has rudimientos (in a copy of c. 1490).^[9]
• 1492 – Nebrija writes of the primeros rudimentos of Greek and Latin grammar.^[9]
• 1594 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[10]
• late 17th century – Corominas's first record, from Autoridades.^[3]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary defines it as “beginning”.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the senses “embryo” and “imperfectly developed part”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. (biology) An embryo or the first, unformed state of a living being.^[2][15]
2. (biology) A part of an organism that is imperfectly developed; a vestigial organ.^[2][15][14]
3. (in the plural) The first rudiments or basic notions of a science, art or profession: Aprendió los rudimentos del oficio con su abuelo.^[2][15][1]

Word family

• rudimentario

Related words

• rudo
• rudeza
• erudito
• Latin rudis
• French rudiment

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. rudimento
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 83
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rudo
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. rudimento
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. rudimento
10. ^ 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. rudimento
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 773
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 691
13. ^ 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. 944
14. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. rudimento
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rudimento