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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word seguro

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1206 a charter in Oelschläger's list More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin securus via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin cura
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin cūra
Italian cura
Spanish cura
Latin sēcūrus
French sûr
Italian sicuro
Spanish seguro
Dutch zeker
English secure
German sicher
From the same root
Latin cūriōsus ← cūra
Latin cūrō ← cūra
Latin incūria ← cūra
Latin assecurō ← sēcūrus
Latin insēcūrus ← sēcūrus
Latin sēcūrē ← sēcūrus
Latin sēcūritās ← sēcūrus
Spanish seguramente ← sēcūrus
French sûrement ← sûr
Italian sicuramente ← sicuro
Italian sicurezza ← sicuro
German Sicherheit ← sicher

Pronunciation

  • /seˈɡuɾo/, [seˈɣ̞u.ɾo][1]

Forms

seguro (feminine segura, masculine plural seguros, feminine plural seguras, superlative segurísimo)[1] A popular variant siguro is widespread, with examples from Argentina in the Martín Fierro.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish seguro, inherited from Latin securus (“free from care; safe”).[2][3][4][1] The Latin adjective is formed with the privative prefix sē- (“without”) and cura (“care, anxiety”), so its first sense was “untroubled, carefree”.[2][3][5][1]

The word survives in all the western Romance languages: Portuguese seguro, Galician seguro, Asturian seguru, Catalan segur, Occitan segur, French sûr and Italian sicuro.[2][6][1] From Latin it also spread to sicher and to Modern Greek.[6]

The Latin noun continues Proto-Italic *kʷoizā, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeys- (“to heed”).[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas takes the first record from a charter of 1206 in Oelschläger's list, and finds the word in Berceo soon after.[2][3] The DEMel lists a primary record in the Fuero de Calatayud of 1131.[8] In Alfonso X's prose (1250 on) the word is already common, with 2,907 occurrences in the Old Spanish texts of the HSMS.[9]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “without care” lived on in the classical writers as “unsuspecting, not expecting something”: Lope's bien seguro de hacer este camino means “far from thinking he would make this journey”, a use since lost, so that seguro kept almost only the sense of Latin tutus, “safe”.[2] Nebrija still separated the two: segura cosa, descuidada (Latin securus) and seguro de peligro (tutus).[2] Covarrubias explained it as quasi sine cura, and the phrase ir con seguro as travelling with a safe-conduct.[10]

The noun is first recorded about 1570 in Ercilla.[2][3] Autoridades defined it as a licence or safe-conduct, needed above all in enemy country, and gave the commercial sense, insurance of goods at risk on sea or land, which Corominas dates to 1739.[11][3] Boyd-Bowman has the noun already in a commercial document of Puebla in 1549: del seguro de çinquenta ducados a nueve por çiento.[12] Salvá (1846) added the safety catch of firearms, and Domínguez noted the insurance companies for fire and the adverbial use “surely”.[13][14]

In Mexico seguro is a safety pin, and in Puerto Rico a bolt or latch.[15][16] In the Philippines the adverb means “probably, perhaps”, and the word passed into Tagalog.[1]

Timeline

  • 1206 – first record in a charter, according to Corominas.[2][3]
  • 1220–1250 – the derivative seguridad appears.[3]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes seguro “carefree” from seguro de peligro “safe”.[2]
  • 1549 – the noun is used in a commercial document of Puebla, Mexico.[12]
  • c. 1570 – the noun appears in Ercilla.[2][3]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as quasi sine cura.[10]
  • 1739 – Autoridades records the noun for a safe-conduct and for commercial insurance.[11][3]
  • 1846 – Salvá records the safety catch of firearms.[13]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. safe, secure: free from danger or risk: Guardó el dinero en un sitio seguro.[4][1]
  2. certain, beyond doubt: Su victoria parece segura.[4][1]
  3. Firm, well fastened: La escalera ya está segura.[4]
  4. reliable, that does not fail: un remedio seguro.[4][1]
  5. Of a person, sure, free of doubt: Estoy seguro de que vendrá.[4][1]

Noun

  1. Safety, certainty, confidence.[4]
  2. A safe place, out of all danger.[4]
  3. A safety catch or lock that prevents a device, machine or weapon from working by accident.[4][1]
  4. A device that warns of a fault in the working of something.[4]
  5. insurance: a contract by which, for a premium, a company undertakes to make good a loss or pay a sum: el seguro de la casa.[4][1]
  6. An insurance company.[4]
  7. (colloquial) Private medical insurance; the social security system.[4]
  8. (Mexico) A safety pin.[15]

Adverb

  1. Surely, certainly: Seguro que ya ha salido.[1][14]
  2. (Philippines) Probably, perhaps.[1]

Word family

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include a buen seguro “certainly”, de seguro “for sure” and sobre seguro “without taking any risk”, all in the Academy's dictionary by 1817.[17] Seguro de vida is life insurance.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 295
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seguro
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. seguro
  5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  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. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. seguro
  9. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. seguro
  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. 1292
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 69
  12. ^ a b 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. aseguro
  13. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 987
  14. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1553
  15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. seguro
  16. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. seguro
  17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 792

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Seguro.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/seguro. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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