seguir

Forms

seguir (first-person singular present sigo, first-person singular preterite seguí, past participle seguido)^[1] Old Spanish had sigo, sigue, siguió as today; a Galician–Leonese letter of the early 13th century writes sigir.^[2] Galician has seguer beside seguir, and Old Navarrese seguecer.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *sequīre, from Latin sequor (“to follow”).^[4][1][5][6] The DLE explains the Vulgar Latin infinitive by the ending of īre (“to go”).^[4] Corominas notes that Latin sequor (infinitive sequī) was replaced by an active *sequere when the deponent verbs were lost, which gave French suivre; the other western Romance languages moved it to the conjugation in ⟨-īre⟩: Italian seguire, Portuguese seguir and Catalan seguir, while Occitan has both seguir and segre.^[5]

sequor continues Proto-Italic *sekʷōr, from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow”); cognates are Ancient Greek ἕπομαι (hépomai) and Sanskrit सचते (sácate).^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas first finds it in Berceo: “enpecólas la duenna reclusa a seguir” (the recluse lady began to follow them).^[5][6] The CDH has earlier hits: the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) says that the people “siguió a dios estrannos”, “followed strange gods”, and the Cortes de León of 1208 speak of following a sentence.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose has the senses “to go after”, “to go in search of”, “to continue” and “to accompany”.^[8] Berceo also uses it for following advice and for imitating.^[9] Covarrubias in 1611 adds “to pursue” and the phrase seguir hasta la mata, taken from a hound chasing a hare into the thicket, and in music, a voice following another in a fugue.^[10] The Diccionario de Autoridades notes the irregular i of sigo, sigues, siguió.^[11] The Academy's 1817 edition lists most of the modern senses: to profess an art or a state of life, to take someone's side, to imitate, and in the reflexive, to follow as a consequence.^[12]

Corominas records the derivative seguida for a pimp's way of life (c. 1510), from which seguidilla, the verse form and dance, may come.^[5] On the Internet the verb is now used for following an account.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has siguió (in a 13th-century copy).^[2]
• 1208 – the Cortes de León, the first CDH record without a later copy.^[2]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, the first record for Corominas.^[5][6]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for a star that follows another.^[8]
• 1444 – first record of the participle siguiente.^[6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin sequor, subsequor and insequor.^[13]
• 1533 – first record from the Americas, in Nombre de Dios.^[14]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “to follow”.^[15]
• 1599 – first record of seguidilla.^[5][6]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records seguir hasta la mata.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin sequi.^[16]
• 2001 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Vulgar Latin *sequīre.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also intransitive) To follow, go after or behind someone: El perro seguía a los niños.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To go in search of someone or something; to pursue, chase.^[4]
3. To continue, go on with what was begun; with a gerund, to keep doing: Sigue lloviendo.^[4][1]
4. (intransitive) To remain, still be: Mi tío sigue en el hospital.^[1]
5. (transitive) To go along with, accompany someone.^[4]
6. (transitive) To profess or practise a science, an art or a way of life.^[4]
7. (transitive) To watch something moving; to keep track of the course of a matter or of someone's movements.^[4]
8. (transitive) To agree with someone, be of their party; to imitate; to obey a rule or advice.^[4][1]
9. (transitive) To handle a business or lawsuit.^[4]
10. (reflexive) To follow from, be a consequence of; to come after in order.^[4]

Word family

• seguido
• seguida
• seguidilla
• seguidor
• seguimiento
• siguiente
• reseguir
• subseguir

Related words

• conseguir
• perseguir
• proseguir
• segundo
• según
• secuela
• Latin sequor

Usage notes

Seguir has the stem change e > i in sigo, sigue, siguió, siga.^[11][1] In Colombia the imperative siga means “come in” or, at table, “go ahead and eat”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. seguir
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6068
4. ^ 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. seguir
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 191
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seguir
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. seguir
9. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 700
10. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1291
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 66
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 792
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 414
14. ^ 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. seguir
15. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 212
16. ^ 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
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. seguir