seducir

Forms

seducir (first-person singular present seduzco, first-person singular preterite seduje, past participle seducido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin sēdūcere (“to lead aside”), a learned word.^[2][3][1] The Latin verb is formed from sē- (“apart, astray”) and dūcō (“to lead”).^[4][1] It first meant to draw a person aside or to separate, and in Church Latin came to mean “to corrupt, lead astray”.^[5][6][7] Corominas places it with the other learned words of the family of aducir.^[2]

The same Latin verb is French séduire, Italian sedurre, Portuguese seduzir and Catalan seduir.^[8][7] The French verb was remade after the Latin from Old French suduire, and Nascentes calls the Portuguese one semi-learned.^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it from 1627, but the CDH has it two centuries earlier, in Enrique de Villena's glosses on the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442): worldly goods flatter and pruevan de seduzir “try to lead astray” the one who would take up virtue.^[2][10] DICCA-XV has a record of 1429.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was moral: to deceive or lead someone into wrong.^[12] In 1499 Fernández de Santaella explains Latin abduco as seduzir o engañar: maxime a cosa inhonesta “to seduce or deceive, above all into something dishonest”.^[10] Cortés used it of winning people over with gifts, in a political sense: Moctezuma had seducido a su amistad some peoples.^[10] Autoridades defined it as deceiving with art and skill, gently persuading someone to evil, and Terreros noted that French séduire was used only in moral matters.^[12][13]

The Academy's 1884 edition added the sense “to captivate, by physical or moral charm”, and the 2001 edition the sense of attracting someone for a sexual relationship.^[14][15] Bénaben observes that the verb has lost its moral tone and now often just means “to please, attract”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena, glosses on the Aeneid (copy of 1442).^[10]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary renders Latin seduco as “to deceive”.^[11]
• 1499 – Fernández de Santaella's Vocabulario eclesiástico, the first record in a contemporary copy.^[10]
• 1519–1526 – Hernán Cortés's Cartas de relación, of winning peoples over.^[10]
• 1627 – the DCECH's date of first record.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades: to persuade gently to evil.^[12]
• 1779 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the sense “to captivate”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To persuade someone by tricks or flattery, usually to something wrong: Lo sedujeron para que firmara.^[3][17]
2. (transitive) To seduce: to attract someone physically in order to have a sexual relationship.^[3][1]
3. (transitive) To captivate or charm: Aquella ciudad me sedujo desde el primer día.^[3][17]

Related words

• seducción
• seductor
• aducir
• conducir
• reducir
• Latin sēdūcō
• French séduire

Usage notes

It is conjugated like conducir: seduzco, seduje.^[17][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 61
3. ^ a b c d 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. seducir
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. seduco
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. seducir
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. séduire
7. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 697
8. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 283
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. seduzir
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. seducir
11. ^ a b 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. seducir
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 65
13. ^ 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, 453
14. ^ 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. 964
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. seducir
16. ^ 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. seducir
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seducir