serie

Forms

serie f (plural series)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin seriēs (“row, chain, succession”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun is formed from serō (“to link, join”) with the suffix -iēs.^[5][1] Corominas lists it in his article on disertar among the learned words that come from the same Latin verb.^[2]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to thread, tie together”), the root of Ancient Greek εἴρω (eírō, “to fasten together”).^[6][1] The DHLF considers the comparisons with other Indo-European languages hypothetical.^[7]

The same Latin word was borrowed as French série in 1715, Portuguese série in the 18th century, Catalan sèrie and Italian serie.^[7][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to Hernán Núñez in 1499.^[2][3] DICCA-XV has a record of 1418, and the CORDE one of 1482.^[10] Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1492 translates Latin series as la orden continuada “unbroken order”, the sense of the first Spanish records.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defined it as the ordered, successive continuation of things, quoting the Comendador's commentary on the Trescientas, which speaks of la serie, o genealogía of the kings of Spain.^[11] An account written in Mexico City in 1690 speaks of la serie de mis sucesos “the sequence of my experiences”.^[12]

The Academy's 1843 dictionary added “link, chain”, and Domínguez (1846) a mathematical sense, a sequence of magnitudes that grow or diminish by a fixed rule.^[13][14] The Academy took the mathematical sense into its 1899 edition.^[15] Industry gave en serie “mass-produced” and fuera de serie “custom-built”, figuratively “outstanding”.^[16] Broadcasting gave the sense “television or radio series”.^[4][1] In Costa Rica a serie is a kick that keeps a ball in the air, and in Dominican Spanish a championship.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 1418 – the first record in DICCA-XV; its date for the CORDE is 1482.^[10]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary translates Latin series.^[10]
• 1499 – Hernán Núñez, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1690 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[12]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros gives orden and fila as synonyms.^[19]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary adds enlace, encadenamiento.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the mathematical sense.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A series: a set of related things that follow one another: Tuvo una serie de averías en el viaje.^[4][1]
2. A serial: a television or radio programme broadcast in episodes.^[4][1]
3. A set of stamps, banknotes or other securities from the same issue.^[4][16]
4. (mathematics) The sum of the infinite terms of a sequence.^[4][1]
5. (exercise) A set of repetitions.^[1]
6. en serie: mass-produced;^[1] fuera de serie: specially made; figuratively, outstanding.^[16][1]

Word family

• seriar

Related words

• serial
• disertar
• insertar
• sermón
• Latin seriēs

Usage notes

In Old Spanish texts serie is usually a form of ser “would be”, the old conditional, which is why the CDH's earliest hits have nothing to do with this noun.^[20] Mathematics distinguishes the serie convergente from the serie divergente.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 501
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. serie
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. serie
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3069
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 705
10. ^ a b c d 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. serie
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. serie
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. serie
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 664
14. ^ 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, 1561
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 910
16. ^ a b c Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 747
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. serie
18. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. serie
19. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 475
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. serie