sellar

Forms

sellar (first-person singular present sello, first-person singular preterite sellé, past participle sellado)^[1] Old Spanish had seellar beside sellar, and forms such as seyellamos and saieillaron.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sigillō (“to mark with a seal”), whose Old Spanish forms were seellar and sellar.^[4][2][5][1] The Latin verb is formed from sigillum (“seal; small figure”), a diminutive of signum (“sign, mark”).^[1][5] The noun sello is the same Latin word, and the verb is listed among its derivatives.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese selar, Asturian sellar, Catalan segellar, Occitan sagelar, French sceller and Italian suggellare.^[1][6][7][8] Spanish later borrowed it as the learned doublet sigilar.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the king's letter to Burgos fuertemientre sellada “strongly sealed”, that is, bearing a seal that gave its contents force.^[10][11] Later in the poem the Cid seals his own letters to the king.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) the stone over the pit is sealed with the ring of the king; a charter of Fernando III of 1229 is sealed with a hanging seal.^[10] Alfonso X's scientific books use the verb for pressing a seal into a substance and for closing or covering something.^[12] The longer form seellar appears in Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre.^[2]

The Diccionario de Autoridades has three senses: to put a seal on, to imprint one thing on another, and to conclude, because the seal is put on last.^[13] The Academy added “to close, cover” in 1817, and a sense “to bind someone with favours”, as if branding a slave, which Salvá already marked as little used.^[14][15] The current dictionary has “to close hermetically”.^[4]

In rural Mexico and Cuba sellar means to sow a field completely, and in Argentina to sear meat.^{[16][17][2][1]}

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has sellada.^[10][5]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has sellaronla.^[10]
• 1229 – a charter of Fernando III is sealed con mio siello pendient.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb for impressing a seal.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has sellar escriptura.^[18]
• 1538 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[19]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “imprint” and “conclude”.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy adds “to close, cover”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin sigillare for the first time.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stamp or put a seal on something: Sellaron el pasaporte en la frontera.^[4][21]
2. To imprint one thing on another, or give something a lasting character.^[4]
3. To conclude or put an end to something; to confirm an agreement.^[4][22]
4. To close something hermetically.^[4][21]
5. (Mexico, Cuba, rural) To sow a field completely.^[16]
6. (Argentina, cooking) To sear meat.^[1]

Word family

• sellado
• sellador
• selladura
• resellar

Related words

• sello
• sigilar
• sigilo
• Latin sigillum
• Catalan segellar

Usage notes

Tener los labios sellados means to be unable to reveal something.^[1][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 197
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sellar
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. sellar
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sello
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3045
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. sellar
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6121
10. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sellar
11. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 434
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. sellar
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 70
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 792
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 987
16. ^ 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. sellar
17. ^ Ortiz, Fernando (1923), Un catauro de cubanismos: apuntes lexicográficos, La Habana, p. 69
18. ^ 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. sellar
19. ^ 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. sellar
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 965
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sellar
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sellar