semejar

Forms

semejar (first-person singular present semejo, first-person singular preterite semejé, past participle semejado)^[1] The Leonese form semeyar becomes semeñar, asemeñar or asemeyar in Asturias.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish semejar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *similiāre (“to resemble”).^[2][3][1][4] The Vulgar Latin verb was derived from similis (“like, similar”), as other Vulgar Latin verbs were from the adjectives levis (“light”) and gravis (“heavy”).^[2][5] The DLE instead derives the verb from the noun semeja, and García de Diego likewise sets it under that noun, which he derives from Latin similia (“similar things”), the neuter plural of the adjective.^[6][7]

Portuguese semelhar, Galician semellar, Asturian semeyar, Aragonese semellar and Italian somigliare continue the same Vulgar Latin verb.^[2][5][8][7] Catalan semblar and French sembler keep instead the Late Latin similāre, which appears with the same meaning in late texts.^[2][9][10] Old Spanish semblar and the noun semblante were borrowed from Catalan.^[2][3]

De Vaan derives the Latin adjective from Proto-Italic *semali- (“alike, together”) and Proto-Indo-European *smh₂-el-i-, cognate with Ancient Greek ὁμαλός (homalós, “even, level”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has it in the sense “to seem”: a lo que·m' semeja, de lo mio avredes algo “as it seems to me, you will have something of mine”.^[2][12] The poem also has myo Cid bien semeja varón “my Cid truly looks a man”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb had all the senses of modern parecer: “to show signs of what one is”, “to seem, give an impression” and “to resemble”.^[2] It was still in full use in the 15th century, in Palencia and in Nebrija, who glossed semejar uno a otro as Latin similo.^[2][13] Cervantes still used it freely, as in que no semeja sino una bazia de barbero in the Quijote.^[2][14] The Academy's 1817 dictionary also had a figurative sense “to be of the opinion”.^[15]

Today it means only “to resemble, look like” and belongs to literary and archaising style, while semejante and semejanza stay in common use.^[2] Moliner notes that, unlike parecer, it is not used impersonally or with a personal complement.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid, the first record.^[2][3][12]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, of a pattern that looked like a net.^[12]
• 1220–1250 – semejante and semejanza first appear.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario.^[16]
• c. 1260 – asemejar first appears.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it as Latin similo.^[13]
• 1532 – the first American record, from Mexico.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives Latin similare.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Latin similare.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, also pronominal, formal) Of a person or thing, to resemble another, look like it: Desde lejos, las rocas semejaban castillos en ruinas.^[6][20][1]

Word family

• semejante
• asemejar
• desemejar
• semejable
• semeja
• semejanza

Related words

• semblante
• similar
• Latin similis
• Portuguese semelhar

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 198
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. semejar
4. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. semejar
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7926
6. ^ a b 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. semejar
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6136
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3054
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7925
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
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. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. semejar
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 415
14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1020
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 793
16. ^ 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. semejar
17. ^ 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. semejar
18. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1292
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 966
20. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. semejar