servitud

Forms

servitud f (plural servitudes)^[1] Old Spanish wrote seruitud and servytud;^[2][3] Alfonso X's prose has seruitut.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin servitūs (“slavery, servitude”).^[4][1][5] Corominas notes that it is old and rare in Castilian, where servidumbre, from Late Latin servitūdō, is the usual word.^[6]

The Latin noun is formed from servus (“slave”) and -tūs, and is recorded from Naevius.^[7][1][8] The neighbouring languages have Catalan servitud, Italian servitù and Portuguese servitude.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest record is the Liber regum (1194–1211), and DICCA-XV reports the same date from the CORDE corpus;^[2][5] the Fazienda de Ultramar (1200–1250) writes servytud.^[2] In Alfonso X's prose (1254) a position of the stars significa pobreza & seruitut “signifies poverty and servitude”: the sense is the condition of a serf.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 glosses Latin servitus with the same sense as servidumbre.^[5] In 1515 a writer in Tierra Firme speaks of la servitud que a V(uestras) Alt(ez)as devo “the service I owe Your Highnesses”.^[10] The Autoridades (vol. 6, 1739) equates it with servidumbre and notes that it is little used.^[11] The Academy marked it as antiquated from 1817 on, and today labels both senses disused.^[12][13][4]

Timeline

• 1194–1211 – the Liber regum.^[2][5]
• 1200–1250 – servytud in the Fazienda de Ultramar.^[2]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's prose.^[3]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[10]
• 1739 – the Autoridades notes that it is little used.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy marks it as antiquated.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin servitus.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (disused) The state or condition of a serf (siervo); servitude, serfdom.^[4][1]
2. (disused) The work proper to a serf.^[4][15]

Related words

• servidumbre
• siervo
• servir
• servil
• Latin servus

Usage notes

The usual word is servidumbre;^[6][16] servitud was already old and rare in the Middle Ages.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. servitud
3. ^ a b c d 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. servitud
4. ^ a b c d 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. servitud
5. ^ 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. servitud
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 243
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
10. ^ 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. servitud
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. servitud
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 799
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 711
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 972
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. servitud
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. servitud