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sentir

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word sentir

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
950–1000 Glosas Silenses, the present form sientet More words from the 10th century
Inherited from
Latin sentio
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *sent-
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin sentiō
Aromanian sãmtu
French sentir
Italian sentire
Spanish sentir
From the same root
Latin cōnsentiō ← sentiō
Latin dissentiō ← sentiō
Latin praesentiō ← sentiō
Latin sēnsibilis ← sentiō
Latin sēnsilis ← sentiō
Latin sēnsim ← sentiō
Latin sensitīvus ← sentiō
Latin sēnsus ← sentiō
Latin sententia ← sentiō
Latin sentīmentum ← sentiō
French ressentir ← sentir
French sentiment ← sentir
Italian sentimento ← sentire

Pronunciation

  • /senˈtiɾ/, [sẽn̪ˈt̪iɾ][1]

Forms

sentir (first-person singular present siento, first-person singular preterite sentí, past participle sentido)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sentiō (“to perceive by the senses; to realise; to think, hold an opinion”), and Old Spanish sentir has the same form.[2][3][4][1] The present sientet already occurs in the Glosas Silenses of the second half of the 10th century, and the infinitive in the Cantar de mio Cid.[2] The verb has been in general use in every period and is common to all the Romance languages.[2]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese sentir, Galician sentir, Asturian sentir, Catalan sentir, Occitan sentir, French sentir, Italian sentire, Sardinian sentire and Romanian simți.[5][6][1] Its Italian derivative sentinella gave centinela “sentry”.[5][6] Wiktionary also counts scent among its cognates.[1]

Wiktionary traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *sent- (“to feel”).[1] De Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Italic *s(e)nt-ije/o- and a PIE verb meaning “to notice”, and compares Lithuanian sintėti (“to think”) and, with the sense “go”, *sandjan- (“to send”) and *sinþa- (“road”).[7] The DHLF and Bénaben call the origin of the Latin verb obscure or not well established.[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first full record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), where the Cid's beaten daughters feel their pain inwardly: „ya lo sienten ellas en los sos coraçones” “now they feel it in their hearts”.[2][10] The sense there is “to feel, experience”.[2]

Semantic evolution

The main modern senses, “to perceive”, “to feel an emotion” and “to judge, think”, are already found in Berceo and Juan Ruiz.[2] Berceo also uses the reflexive for “to find oneself, consider oneself”.[11] In Alfonso X's prose the verb means to experience sensations, to hear and to feel bodily or spiritual impressions, and the infinitive is used as a noun, el sentir “the faculty of feeling”.[12]

The sense “to regret, be sorry for” is an innovation shared by Spanish and Portuguese;[2] Corominas finds it in the Guzmán de Alfarache of 1599.[2] Spanish also moved towards using sentir for “to hear”, as Catalan and Italian do, but in Spain it stayed a vague, colloquial perception and never replaced oír.[2] In Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Puerto Rico it became the ordinary popular word for hearing.[2] The Canary Islands keep the sense “to hear” today, and Judeo-Spanish uses sentir for hearing and listening.[13][14]

Covarrubias in 1611 noted that sentir was often used for “to understand”.[15] The noun el sentir “feeling; opinion” is dated by Corominas to the 17th century, in Autoridades.[2] In many countries of Latin America the reflexive sentirse means “to take offence”.[16]

Timeline

  • 950–1000 – the Glosas Silenses have the present sientet.[2][3]
  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the verb for inner feeling.[2][10]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for experiencing sensations.[12]
  • 1272–1275 – the General estoria uses el sentir as a noun.[12]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sentio for it.[17]
  • 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.[18]
  • 1599 – the Guzmán de Alfarache has the sense “to regret”.[2]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias notes the use of sentir for “to understand”.[15]
  • 1739 – Autoridades describes the change of the stem vowel in siento and sintió.[19]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin sentire.[20]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To feel, perceive a sensation caused by something outside or inside the body: Sentía el sol en la espalda.[4][1]
  2. To hear, perceive by ear: Sentimos ruido en la escalera.[4][1]
  3. To feel a bodily sensation, pleasure or pain: Siento un dolor en la rodilla.[4]
  4. To feel an emotion: Sintió una gran tristeza.[4][1]
  5. To regret, be sorry about: Siento mucho llegar tarde;[4][1] lo siento “I am sorry”.[4][1]
  6. To think, hold an opinion.[4]
  7. In recitation, to give the words the delivery and expression that suit them.[4]
  8. To sense in advance, foresee; said especially of animals that sense a change in the weather.[4]
  9. (reflexive) To be or feel in a certain state: Hoy se siente mejor.[4][1]
  10. (reflexive) To consider oneself: Se sentía responsable de todo.[4]
  11. (reflexive) To complain of something; to feel pain in a part of the body.[4]
  12. (reflexive) Of a wall, glass or bell, to begin to crack; of food, to begin to go bad.[4]
  13. (reflexive, Latin America) To take offence.[16]

Noun

  1. Feeling, sentiment.[4][1]
  2. Opinion, view: en mi sentir “in my opinion”.[4][21]

Word family

  • sentido
  • sentimiento
  • sentimental
  • resentirse
  • consentir
  • asentir
  • disentir
  • presentir
  • sentencia
  • sensación
  • sensible
  • sensual
  • sensato
  • centinela
  • Latin sentiō
  • Portuguese sentir

Usage notes

The stem vowel changes in some forms, siento, siente but sintió, sintieras, a feature Autoridades already describes.[19] The phrase sin sentir means “without noticing”.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 208
  3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sentir
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. sentir
  5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. sentire
  6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6055
  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. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. sentir
  9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. sentir
  10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sentir
  11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 708
  12. ^ a b c 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. sentir
  13. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. sentir
  14. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. sentir
  15. ^ 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. 1293
  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. sentir
  17. ^ 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. sentir
  18. ^ 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. sentir
  19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 84
  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. 968
  21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sentir

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Sentir.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/sentir. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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