sabio

Forms

sabio (feminine sabia, masculine plural sabios, feminine plural sabias)^[1] Old Spanish also writes savio and sauio, and once savi.^[2] The Leonese text of the Libro de Alexandre has sage, taken from French.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sabio, inherited from Late Latin sapĭdus (“wise, prudent”), according to the DCECH, the Breve diccionario, the DLE and Wiktionary.^[4][5][6][1] The Latin adjective meant “tasty, having a good taste”; in late Latin it sometimes already had the figurative sense “prudent, judicious”.^[4][7]

García de Diego rejects this and derives it from a Vulgar Latin *sapius (“wise”), which he takes to be proved by nesapius (“unwise”) and forms directly on sapiō (“to taste; to be wise”); he calls Meyer-Lübke's etymon impossible for Portuguese and Galician.^[3] Bénaben and Gómez de Silva also start from this Vulgar Latin form, which they derive from the late Latin adjective.^[8][9] The REW lists the Spanish word with Portuguese sábio, Catalan savi, Occitan sabi and French sage apart from the regular outcomes of the adjective, such as Old French sade (“tasty”).^[10][11] The learned doublet is sápido “having taste”.^[1][12]

The Latin verb goes back to *sap-i- and *sh₁p-i- (“to notice”), though de Vaan leaves the laryngeal of the root uncertain.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Razón de amor, of about 1205 and known from a copy of 1250–1260, has del sabio fazedes loco “you make a fool of the wise man”.^[14] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), the earliest hit without a later copy, uses the noun: segund que dizen los sabios “as the wise men say”.^[14] The DCECH's first record is Berceo, and the Breve diccionario dates the word 1220–1250.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses it for a person who has wisdom and for one of sound judgment: sabio deue seer el clerigo en dar las penedencias “the priest must be wise in giving penances”.^[15] The DCECH calls it a word in general use in every period.^[4]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined the noun as the person who has wisdom, quoting Lope de Vega on Alfonso X, con tan justa razón llamado el Sabio, and recorded it as an antonomasia for Solomon; it also gave an adjective for things that teach or contain wisdom.^[16] Terreros described the wise man as one who has learned to know himself and to guide his actions by right reason.^[17] The Academy's dictionary of 1899 added the sense “sensible, prudent”.^[18]

Modern dictionaries put first the person with deep learning in a science or an art, and add the animal trained to perform tricks;^[6][19] Moliner also notes an ironic use for a know-all, and lenguas sabias for the classical languages.^[6][19]

Timeline

• 1167 – DEMel's earliest record, in the Mozarabic documents of Toledo.^[2]
• c. 1205 – the Razón de amor (in a copy of 1250–1260).^[14]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has los sabios.^[14]
• 1220–1250 – the date the Breve diccionario gives; the DCECH cites Berceo.^[5][4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of the books the sabios wrote about the heavens.^[15]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Greek sophos and Latin sapiens.^[20]
• 1528 – the first record from the Americas, on the Río de la Plata.^[21]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “wise, skilful, cunning”.^[22]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records el Sabio for Solomon.^[16]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary has the adjective for things that contain wisdom.^[23]
• 1899 – the sense “sensible, prudent” enters the Academy's dictionary.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person: having wisdom; wise; also used as a noun.^[6][1]
2. Of a person: having deep knowledge of a subject, a science or an art; learned; also used as a noun, a scholar or scientist: Aquel sabio dedicó su vida a la botánica.^[6][19]
3. Of a thing: that teaches or contains wisdom: Fue una elección sabia.^[6][19]
4. sensible, prudent; also used as a noun.^[6]
5. Of an animal: trained to perform many tricks, as a perro sabio.^[6][19]

Related words

• saber
• sabiduría
• sápido
• Latin sapidus
• Portuguese sábio

Usage notes

The 2001 edition of the Academy's dictionary has a separate noun sabio “sandstone”, from Latin sabulum (“sand”), used in Extremadura.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5894
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 111
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saber
6. ^ 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. sabio
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
12. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ 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. sabio
15. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024)
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 4
17. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 410
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 888
19. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 412
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
22. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 209
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 647
24. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe