santo

Forms

santo (masculine singular before a noun san, feminine santa, masculine plural santos, feminine plural santas, superlative santísimo)^[1] Before a masculine name the adjective is shortened to san (San Pedro), except before Domingo, Tomás, Tomé, Toribio and Job.^[2][3] Old Spanish also wrote sancto, and used sant and san before names.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish santo, also written sancto, inherited from Latin sanctus (“holy, sacred”).^[7][8][1] The Latin adjective is the past participle of sanciō (“to make sacred or inviolable, ratify”).^[7][9] Bénaben explains that it named a holiness obtained through a rite, while sacer named a state that is sacred in itself.^[10] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *sanktos, from *sankjō (“to consecrate”), and Proto-Indo-European *seh₂k- (“to sanctify, make a treaty”).^[1]

The same word is Portuguese santo, Catalan sant, French saint and Italian santo; san and Portuguese são are the shortened forms used before names.^[11] The learned sanción and santificar come from the same Latin family, and santiguar is a semi-learned form of sanctificāre.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the middle of the 10th century.^[7] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) Padre santo is God, santo logar a church, and the noun names the saints who receive worship: „omillos a los santos”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has the senses “perfect and free of sin”, “declared a saint by the Church”, “of special virtue” (un sancto omne) and “consecrated to God”.^[5] The Diccionario de Autoridades said that the word belongs properly to God alone, and to angels and men only by grace and participation.^[12] The Academy's 1843 edition added the familiar sense “simple, naive” (es un santo hombre).^[13] The noun came to mean an image of a saint, and the feast of the saint whose name a person bears, the name day.^[14][8] The DLE also has a colloquial sense “husband, wife”, and the word strengthens a noun in phrases such as todo el santo día “the whole blessed day”.^[8]

Sayings include quedarse para vestir santos “to stay unmarried”, of a woman.^[15] In Honduras santo can mean a pretext or a lie, and in Argentina a supporter of the San Lorenzo football club.^[16] In Leonese the plural is a children's game played with pictures from matchboxes, and the word can name November.^[17] Tagalog and Chavacano borrowed the word.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first record, in the middle of the 10th century.^[7]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses Padre santo for God and los santos for the saints.^[6]
• c. 1140 – the derivatives santidad and santiguar.^[7]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España speaks of un sancto omne “a holy man”.^[5]
• 1434 – the compound sambenito, first a Benedictine scapular.^[7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sacrosanctus.^[18]
• 1518 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin and defines saints as those God has chosen.^[20]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the familiar sense “simple, naive”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin sanctus.^[21]

Meanings

Adjective

1. holy: perfect and free of all sin.^[8][1]
2. In Christianity, of a person: declared a saint by the Church, which orders that they be venerated everywhere; also as a noun.^[8]
3. Of a person: of special virtue and example; also as a noun: Su abuela era una santa.^[8]
4. Of a thing: dedicated or consecrated to God; sacred.^[8]
5. Venerable for a religious reason.^[8]
6. Of a day: devoted to a religious feast, or one of the days of Holy Week after Palm Sunday, as Jueves Santo “Maundy Thursday”.^[8]
7. Sacred, inviolable.^[8]
8. Especially beneficial: Aquella infusión fue un santo remedio.^[8][3]
9. Of a thing: with a special virtue for curing some illnesses, as in hierba santa.^[8]
10. Used by the Catholic Church of itself.^[8]
11. Used to intensify some nouns: Me tuvo esperando toda la santa tarde.^[8]

Noun

1. An image of a saint.^[8]
2. (colloquial) A spouse.^[8]
3. A person's name day: Mañana celebro mi santo.^[8][1]

Word family

• santero
• santidad
• santón
• santoral
• santuario
• santiamén

Related words

• santificar
• sacro
• sagrado
• sanción
• santiguar
• santurrón
• Latin sanctus

Usage notes

Common phrases are tener el santo de cara “to be lucky”, tener el santo de espaldas “to be unlucky”, and santo y seña “password”.^[8][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. santo
3. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. santo
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. santo
5. ^ a b c 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), p. s.v. santo
6. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. santo
7. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. santo
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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. santo
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sanctus
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. santo
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7569
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 43
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 655
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 701
15. ^ 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, p. 707
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. santo
17. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. santo
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 413
19. ^ 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. santo
20. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1284
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 958