seña

Forms

seña f (plural señas)^[1] Old Spanish spelt it senna, seyna, seynna and senia.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin signa (“marks; military standards”), the neuter plural of the noun, taken as a feminine singular.^{[3][4][5][6][1]} Catalan senya continues the same plural.^[7] The Latin word also gave Portuguese senha, Occitan senh and Italian segno.^[8]

De Vaan derives the Latin noun from *sekno- (“statue, sign”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek(h₂)-no- (“cut”), related to secō (“to cut”): a sign would first have been a mark cut into something.^[9][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses the word for “banner, standard”, as in fasta Alcalá llegó la seña de Minaya “Minaya's banner reached as far as Alcalá”, and for “token, proof”: Fevos aquí las señas, verdat vos digo yo “here are the proofs, I tell you the truth”, of the hundred horses sent to the king.^[10][3][11] The Cid distinguishes the seña cabdal, the leader's own banner.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The sense “banner” was usual throughout the Middle Ages.^[3] Nebrija still glosses seña de armados with Latin signum.^[3] The sense that prevails today, a gesture made to convey something, is old too: Juan Ruiz has a debate held por señas.^[3] Alfonso X's prose has both the mark or gesture and the military standard.^[12] By 1726 the Academy called the banner sense obsolete and gave the sense of a sign agreed between people.^[13] The Academy's 1817 edition added the military password given with the santo.^[14] The plural señas for a person's address is in Alemany's 1917 dictionary and is now the usual word on an envelope.^[15][16]

In Argentina and Uruguay seña is a deposit paid in advance on a purchase, a sense Román and Medina had already noted for Chile, where the word was also the peal of bells calling to mass.^{[5][17][18][19]} In Mexico it can be a rude gesture, and in the Dominican Republic the signs exchanged by baseball players.^[17][20]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has seña for “banner” and for “token, proof”.^[3][10]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has senna for the standard of the tribe of Judah.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses sennas for signs made with the fingers.^[12]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as an agreed signal and the banner of war.^[21]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades marks the sense “banner” as obsolete.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the military password and the phrases hablar por señas and por más señas.^[14]
• 1917 – Alemany records the plural for a person's address.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sign, indication or gesture that conveys something or lets it be known: Me hizo una seña desde la puerta.^[5][1]
2. A signal agreed between two or more people so that they understand each other.^[5][16]
3. A mark or token used to remember something later.^[5]
4. A trace that remains of something and recalls it.^[5]
5. (military) A password that, with the santo, served to recognise friendly or hostile troops.^[5]
6. (Latin America) A sign made with the hands, as in lengua de señas “sign language”.^[5][1]
7. (Argentina, Uruguay) A deposit paid in advance in some contracts.^[5][17]
8. (obsolete) A military standard or banner.^[5]
9. (in the plural) The place where someone lives; an address.^[5][16]

Word family

• contraseña
• entreseña

Related words

• enseñar
• señal
• señalar
• señar
• enseña
• señuelo
• signo
• Catalan senya

Usage notes

Common phrases are hablar por señas “to talk in signs”, por más señas “to be more precise”, santo y seña “password”, señas personales “distinguishing features” and señas de identidad.^[5][14][1] The noun is not the present tense of the verb señar, which comes separately from Latin signare and is now dated except in Aragon and Navarre.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. seña
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. 5, 209
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seña
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. seña
6. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. seña
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 7, 809
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7907
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. seña
11. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. seña
12. ^ 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), p. s.v. seña
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 85
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 795
15. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1504
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seña
17. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. seña
18. ^ 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. 240
19. ^ Medina, José Toribio (1927), Chilenismos: apuntes lexicográficos, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Universo, p. 68
20. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. seña
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1293