sargento

Forms

sargento m or f by sense (plural sargentos, feminine sargento or sargenta, feminine plural sargentos or sargentas)^[1] Old Spanish has sergente, sergent, sargent and sargente, in the sense “servant”.^[2][3][4] A text of 1575 from Mexico City spells it çarjento.^[5]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish sargente, borrowed from Old French sergent (“servant; sergeant”).^[6][1][7][8] The DCECH, which first records the military form about 1577, takes it from sergeant “servant, sergeant”, and the Vox dictionary dates the borrowing to the 17th century.^[9][10]

The French word, earlier ⟨sergant⟩, ⟨serjant⟩ (c. 1050), continues the legal Latin ⟨servientem⟩ of the 8th century, said of a man in a lord's service.^[11] This is the noun use of Latin serviēns (“serving”), the present participle of serviō (“to serve, be a slave”),^[11][1] which Medieval Latin also used for a soldier below the rank of knight.^[12] The verb comes from servus (“slave, servant”), perhaps of Etruscan origin, or from Proto-Italic *serwo.^[1]

The French word spread to many languages, among them Italian sergente, Catalan sergent and English sergeant.^[13][14] In Spanish it is a doublet of sirviente, from the same Latin participle.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is the Libro de los buenos proverbios (c. 1250, in a copy of the late 13th century), where Aristotle calls himself el pobre sergente “the poor servant” of a king's son.^[3] In Alfonso X's prose sergent is a servant or attendant (matol un su sergent “a servant of his killed him”), and the sergentes del tiemplo are the servants who keep the temple.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The military rank appears in the 16th century: a text of 1547 from Mexico City says of a man that en Veragua fue sargento y tovo cargo de gente “in Veragua he was a sergeant and had charge of men”, and the sargento mayor is recorded there in 1575.^[5] The DCECH's first record of the military word is from about 1577, followed by Oudin, Covarrubias and Cervantes (1613); the verb sargentear is in Ercilla, about 1570.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades describes the sergeant as a junior officer who passes the orders of the adjutant and the captain to the corporals and soldiers, and forms the ranks with his halberd; it also records the court sense, an alcalde de corte who stood in for the five senior judges.^[15] The Academy's dictionaries of the 19th century distinguish first and second sergeants, and in 1884 it derived the word from French sergent.^[16][17]

Colloquially a sargento is now a bossy, authoritarian person, especially a woman.^[6][18] As the name of a carpenter's clamp the word is recorded from 1893 and is used throughout the Spanish-speaking world; the DHLE compares French sergent, used for such a tool since at least 1549.^[19] The word also names birds in Mexico and Central America, the first of them recorded in Tabasco in 1854, and in Argentina and Peru a large cigarette end, from 1933.^[19][20] In Chiloé a lamb born with four horns is called a sargento.^[21][22]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – sergente “servant” in the Libro de los buenos proverbios (late 13th-century copy).^[3]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X uses sergent for a servant.^[4]
• 1280 – Navarrese accounts have sargentos and sergent.^[2]
• 1547 – the military sense, in a text from Mexico City.^[5]
• c. 1570 – sargentear in Ercilla.^[9]
• c. 1577 – the DCECH's first record of the military word.^[9]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the rank and the court office.^[15]
• 1854 – the first record as a bird name, in Tabasco.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from French sergent.^[17]
• 1893 – the first record as the name of a clamp.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. (military) A sergeant: a non-commissioned officer ranking just above the cabo mayor and below the sargento primero.^[6][1]
2. (colloquial, derogatory) An authoritarian, bossy person: Su jefa es un sargento.^[6][18]
3. (historical) In the old infantry companies, a junior officer next below the alférez, who drilled and quartered the soldiers, kept discipline and kept the accounts.^[6]
4. (historical) An alcalde de corte next in seniority to the five who formed the provincial court, and their substitute.^[6][15]
5. (carpentry) A clamp that holds pieces of wood together, for example while glue sets.^{[1][19][20][23]}
6. (Mexico, Central America) A name of several birds, such as the red-winged blackbird.^[20][19]

Word family

• sargenta
• sargentear
• sargentería
• sargentía
• sargentona

Related words

• sirviente
• servir
• siervo
• French sergent
• English sergeant

Usage notes

A woman holding the rank is usually la sargento rather than la sargenta.^[10][1] Sargenta is an old word for a sergeant's wife, and is also used for a bossy woman.^[9][18] Set phrases include sargento primero and the historical sargento mayor, an officer in charge of a regiment's drill and discipline.^[6][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, p. s.v. sargento
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
4. ^ 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. sargento
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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. sargento
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. sargento
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6091
9. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 243
10. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sargento
11. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
13. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 48
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 656
17. ^ 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. 960
18. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
19. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. sargento
20. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
21. ^ 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. 213
22. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 72
23. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. sargento