sínodo

Forms

sínodo m (plural sínodos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin synodus (“assembly of bishops”), which is from Ancient Greek σύνοδος (súnodos, “meeting, assembly”).^[2][1][3] The Greek noun is formed from σύν (sún, “with, together”) and ὁδός (hodós, “way, road”).^[4][5][1] The Academy's dictionary takes the Church sense from Byzantine Greek, and notes that the astronomical sense “conjunction of two planets” is already found in Aristotle and Plutarch.^[2] In Latin the word named a college of priests in inscriptions before it was used for a council of the Church in the Codex of Justinian and in Ammianus.^[6] Vox dates the Spanish loan to the 15th century and calls the sense “meeting of bishops” a Christian specialisation of the Greek word.^[7]

Old French had an inherited form Old French sane, and Old Lyonnais seyno.^[8] The Greek noun belongs to the same family as episodio, método, período and éxodo, all from compounds of the same Greek word for “way”.^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest Spanish records in the CDH are Aragonese chronicles of about 1385: Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España says the Goths held the third sinodo de Toledo, and the chronicles drawn from Saint Isidore and Lucas of Tuy speak of the sinodo of 150 fathers held at Constantinople.^[10] The sense is the council of bishops; the word was then often feminine, as in Juan de Mena's la sínodo santa (1444) “the holy synod” of Nicaea.^[10][3][9]

Semantic evolution

DEMel records the word in Alfonso X's Siete Partidas (1256–1265); the CDH has the passage only in a printed text of 1491, which explains it as a gathering of clergy once a year, which a bishop may convene although he may not call a council.^[11][10] Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 glossed synodus as concilium.^[12]

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 gave the word both genders and recorded the astronomical sense, the diocesan synod and the national and provincial councils.^[13] The 1869 edition has the board of clergy that examines candidates for ordination and confessors, and the current one also the assembly of Protestant ministers; the santo sínodo is the governing assembly of the Russian Church.^[14][2]

In the Americas sínodo also came to mean the stipend paid to a parish priest or missionary: a Buenos Aires text of 1621 speaks of gifts to the caciques paid a costa de mi sínodo “out of my stipend”.^[15] Román describes this sense as still alive in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century, where it was the income the State assigned to poorly endowed priests, and traces it to the laws of the Indies.^[16]

Timeline

• 1256–1265 – DEMel records sínodo in Alfonso X's Siete Partidas.^[11]
• c. 1385 – first records in the CDH, in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España and the Aragonese chronicle from Saint Isidore.^[10]
• 1444 – Juan de Mena writes la sínodo santa in the Laberinto de Fortuna; this is the BDELC's first date.^[9][10][3]
• 1490 – the adjective sinodal is first recorded, in Alfonso de Palencia.^[9][3]
• 1499 – the DCECH's first record, in Hernán Núñez.^[3]
• 1565 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[15]
• 1621 – the sense “priest's stipend” in Buenos Aires.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary gives it both genders and the astronomical sense.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin and Greek etymology.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A council of bishops; a synod: El papa convocó un sínodo sobre la familia.^[2][5]
2. A board of clergy named by the bishop to examine candidates for ordination and confessors.^[2][5]
3. An assembly of Protestant ministers that decides Church matters.^[2][7]
4. (astronomy) The conjunction of two planets in the same degree of the ecliptic.^[2][5]
5. (Chile, dated) A stipend paid by the State to a priest.^[16]

Word family

• sinodal
• sinódico

Related words

• episodio
• método
• período
• éxodo
• Latin synodus

Usage notes

The word is masculine today, but it was often feminine in Old Spanish, as it is in Greek and Latin.^[16][3][6] Set phrases are sínodo diocesano, a meeting of the clergy of a diocese called and chaired by the bishop, and santo sínodo.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. sínodo
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 650
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. sínodo
5. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sínodo
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. synodus
7. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sínodo
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8500
9. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. episodio
10. ^ 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. sínodo
11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sínodo
12. ^ 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. sínodo
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 804
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 715
15. ^ a b c 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. sínodo
16. ^ a b c 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. 277
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 918