servicio

Forms

servicio m (plural servicios)^[1] Old Spanish texts spell it seruicio, seruiçio, serviçio, seruitio and, in the Cid, cervicio.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin servitium (“slavery, servitude”), recorded from about 950 in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[4][5][6][1] An Old Spanish servizo, the inherited form, is found in the Fuero Juzgo and survives in Galician servizo;^[7] the Castilian word is the learned form.^[7]

The Latin noun is formed from servus (“slave”) with the suffix -itium.^[8][1][9] In Church Latin it also meant “office, divine service”.^[10] De Vaan reports Rix's view that the base noun first meant “guard, shepherd” and came to mean “slave” in Italy between 700 and 450 BC; the stem would belong to a root Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to watch over, protect”).^[11][1]

Portuguese serviço, Italian servizio and French service go back to the same Latin word.^[1][12] The French word, first servise about 1050, began in religious and feudal language.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the Glosas Emilianenses, about 950.^[4][5] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) speaks of the men que van a so cervicio “who go in his service”, and the Cortes of León of 1208 use servicio in a text of their own time.^[3] In the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215) it is the worship of God: façer servicio a Dios.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the word means the act of serving a lord, the worship owed to God, the money offered to the king (a servicio in the sense of a tax or subsidy) and the profit one gets from another's work.^[14] Autoridades listed the act of serving, the condition of a servant and the worship of God.^[15] By 1843 the Academy also recorded the vessel for excrement, and by 1869 the place set at table for each diner and the set of tableware.^[16][17]

In the Americas a servicio is a latrine or toilet, as Garzón noted for Argentina and Santamaría for Spanish America generally;^[18][19][20] servicio sanitario is a public toilet in Colombia, Argentina and Chile.^[18][19][20] Dominican Spanish uses it for a single portion of food served in a restaurant.^[21] In Chile Román condemned as a Gallicism the liturgical use in servicio fúnebre “funeral service”.^[22]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first record, in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has cervicio “service of a lord”.^[3]
• 1208 – the Cortes of León use servicio in a contemporary text.^[3]
• 1280 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses the plural servicios for payments to a king.^[14]
• 1521 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[23]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary records the sense “chamber pot”.^[16]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin servitium.^[24]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or effect of serving; service.^[6][1]
2. The body of servants of a household; domestic service.^[6]
3. Religious service, worship.^[6]
4. Merit earned by serving the State or another body or person.^[6]
5. Military service.^[6]
6. A favour done to someone: Me hiciste un gran servicio aquel día.^[6]
7. (historical) Before constitutional government, a contribution voted by the Cortes.^[6]
8. A chamber pot; a toilet, also in the plural.^[6][1]
9. An enema.^[6]
10. The place setting laid for each diner; the food put on the table; a set of tableware for serving a meal, coffee or tea.^[6][1]

Word family

• autoservicio
• servicial

Related words

• servir
• siervo
• servidumbre
• Latin servitium
• Portuguese serviço

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. servicio
3. ^ 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. servicio
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 243
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. siervo
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. servicio
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. servitium
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
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. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
14. ^ 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. servicio
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. servicio
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 665
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 710
18. ^ a b Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 448
19. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 82
20. ^ 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. servicio
21. ^ 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. servicio
22. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 251
23. ^ 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. servicio
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 911