semana

Forms

semana f (plural semanas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote sedmana, setmana and sebmana beside semana.^[2][3] The form sedmana is in the Fuero Juzgo of 1241 and is frequent in the 13th century.^[2][3] The Leonese form selmana is in the Libro de Alexandre and in Juan Ruiz, and still reaches parts of Burgos.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin septimāna (“week”); Old Spanish semana has the same form beside older spellings.^[2][5][6][7] The Late Latin noun is the feminine of the adjective septimānus (“of the seventh, of seven”), from septimus (“seventh”), from septem (“seven”).^[8][9][1] The adjective, made with the suffix -ānus, was used of festivals falling on the seventh day of the month.^[10][1] The numeral goes back to Proto-Indo-European *septḿ (“seven”).^[11]

The same Late Latin word is Portuguese semana, Galician semana, Asturian selmana, Catalan setmana, Occitan setmana, French semaine, Italian settimana and Romanian săptămână.^[12][4][1] Old Spanish also had forms with ⟨d⟩, ⟨t⟩ or ⟨l⟩ before the ⟨m⟩, and the Leonese one survives in dialects.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) counts time in weeks: „Allí yogo mio Cid complidas quinze semanas” “There my Cid lay a full fifteen weeks”.^[13][5] In the poem tres semanas also means “a short time”.^[14] The first text known in its own copy is the record of the Cortes of León of 1208, with a term of „tres semanas”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The word has always meant a series of seven days.^[6][13] Alfonso X's prose counted it from Sunday to Saturday, and Moliner notes that Monday used to be seen as the second day, while it is now taken as the first.^[15][16] Gómez de Silva notes that the seven-day week was introduced officially in the Roman Empire in the 4th century under Constantine, after Jewish and Babylonian use.^[8]

Covarrubias explained the word as quasi septimana and recorded semanero, one who serves a week in an office.^[17] The Autoridades added the sense of a period of seven months, years or centuries, as in las semanas de Daniel, and the entry Semana Santa, Holy Week.^[18] The DLE also gives “a week's wages” and a form of hopscotch.^[6] In Bolivia and Chile semana corrida is a full week's pay even with holidays in it.^[6][19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has semanas, also spelt semmanas.^[13][14]
• 1208 – the Cortes of León, the first record without a later copy.^[13]
• 1241 – the form sedmana in the Fuero Juzgo.^[2]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's prose defines the week from Sunday to Saturday.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Greek-derived Latin hebdomas and hebdomada as equivalents, and records semanero.^[20][21][2]
• 1532 – Holy Week, Semana Santa, kept in Mexico: the first record from the Americas.^[22]
• 1600 – first record of entresemana.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the word as quasi septimana.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A week: the seven days from Monday to Sunday.^[6][1]
2. Any period of seven days in a row: Estuve una semana en la playa.^[6]
3. The wages earned in a week.^[6]
4. A period of seven units of time, months, years or centuries, as in las semanas de Daniel.^[6]
5. A kind of hopscotch.^[6]

Word family

• semanal
• semanario
• semanero
• entresemana

Related words

• siete
• séptimo
• setiembre
• Latin septimāna

Usage notes

Semana Santa is Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.^[18] Colloquially mala semana is menstruation.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 244
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. semana
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. septimana
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. siete
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. semana
7. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
8. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 638
9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
13. ^ 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. semana
14. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. semana
15. ^ 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. semana
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. semana
17. ^ 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
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 71
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. semana
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 415
21. ^ 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. semana
22. ^ 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. semana
23. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 703