servar

Forms

servar (first-person singular present servo, first-person singular preterite servé, past participle servado)^[1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin servō (“to watch over, guard, keep”).^[2][1][3] DICCA-XV treats it instead as a word taken from Latin, and the DCECH gives it no article of its own, only a cross-reference to conservar, which Corominas calls a learned borrowing.^[4][5][6]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese servar, Catalan servar, Occitan servar, Italian serbare and Romanian serba “to keep (holidays), celebrate”.^[3][7] Monlau noted in 1856 that Catalan still used its verb in the sense “to keep”.^[8]

The OLD compares the Latin verb with Umbrian seritu and Avestan haraiti.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DICCA-XV dates its own first record to 1400–1460 and reports an earlier one, of 1317, in the CORDE;^[4][10] DEMel lists the spelling seruar only from glossaries of Old Spanish and of documents from Upper Aragon.^[4][10] The sense is “to keep, guard”.^[4][11]

Semantic evolution

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 already marked the verb as obsolete and defined it as “the same as observar, or guardar”.^[12] Its 1843 and 1869 editions kept that entry, and Monlau (1856) described it as obsolete, with the senses “to keep, save, observe”.^[13][14][8] The DLE and Moliner still list it as obsolete, for keeping something and for observing a law.^[2][11]

Timeline

• 1317 – the earliest record in the CORDE, as DICCA-XV reports it.^[4]
• 1400–1460 – the first record in the DICCA-XV corpus.^[4]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses the Latin verb seruo “por guardar”.^[4]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary lists it as obsolete.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the etymology “Del lat. servare”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (obsolete) To keep, guard.^[11][13]
2. (obsolete) To observe or comply with (a law or rule).^[2][11][1]

Related words

• conservar
• observar
• preservar
• reservar
• Catalan servar

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. servar
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6090
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 229
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. conservar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 410
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
11. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. servar
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 798
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 665
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 710
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 911