sexo

Forms

sexo m (plural sexos)^[1] Some 15th- and 16th-century writers used the Latin form sexu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin sexus (“sex, the state of being male or female”), a learned word.^[4][5][6][1] Corominas first finds it in Santillana and in Alfonso de Palencia (1490), and dates it about 1440; the CDH has it in 1402.^[4][5][2] It is not in Nebrija, Covarrubias or Don Quixote, but it is in Oudin's dictionary and in Góngora and Quevedo.^[4]

French borrowed the same Latin word as French sexe in the 13th century.^[7] Its counterparts include Italian sesso and the English word sex.^[8][9]

sexus had a neuter doublet secus, always used with an adjective meaning “male” or “female”.^[10] Since antiquity it has been compared with secō (“to cut”), the sexes being a division of the species; de Vaan finds the link possible but the formation of the word unclear.^[10][11][12] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first hit in the CDH is in Pero López de Ayala's Caída de príncipes (1402): commo del mejor sexo es a saber de varones ovo quatro & de fenbras ovo dos “of the better sex, that is of males, he had four, and of females two”.^[2] The sense is the one the word still has, the division between male and female.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1739) defined the word as what distinguishes male from female in animals, chiefly said of human beings.^[13] Terreros used it for the part of the body that distinguishes man from woman, and recorded el sexo devoto for women.^[8] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 extended it to plants, and that of 1899 has bello sexo for women as a whole.^[14][15] Baralt (1855) accepted bello sexo as a widespread Gallicism, from French beau sexe, but rejected el sexo alone for women.^[16]

Corominas notes the euphemistic use for the female genitals, which has ancient precedents in Pliny and Lactantius.^[4] The 2001 Academy dictionary already had the senses “sexual organs” and “sexual pleasure”; the current one has “sexual activity” for the second.^[17][6] The adjective sexual is a coinage of Álvarez de Cienfuegos (died 1809), mocked by Moratín, and was first admitted by the Academy in 1843.^[4]

Timeline

• 1402 – first hit in the CDH, in López de Ayala's Caída de príncipes.^[2]
• c. 1440 – Corominas's date, from Santillana.^[4][5]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario uses it several times.^[4]
• 1548 – first record in the Americas, at Santo Domingo.^[3]
• 1739 – Autoridades says it is chiefly said of human beings, and pronounced with x as /ks/.^[13]
• late 18th century – sexual is first recorded.^[5]
• 1843 – the Academy extends the definition to plants and admits sexual.^[14][4]
• 1899 – the Academy records bello sexo “women as a whole”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. sex: the organic condition, male or female, of animals and plants: En el formulario hay que indicar la edad y el sexo.^[6][1]
2. The set of beings that share the same sex: el sexo femenino.^[6][1]
3. The sexual organs.^[6][1]
4. Sexual activity: Hablaron de sexo sin ningún pudor.^[6][1]

Word family

• sexual
• sexualidad
• asexual
• sexuado

Related words

• Latin sexus
• French sexe

Usage notes

Sexo débil and bello sexo “women” are now used with a disparaging or discriminatory intent, and are labelled so by the Academy;^[18] sexo feo and sexo fuerte are said of men.^[6][18] The ⟨x⟩ is pronounced /ks/, or /ɡs/ in Wiktionary's transcription.^[13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. sexo
3. ^ 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. sexo
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 235
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sexo
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. sexo
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. sexe
8. ^ a b 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, 483
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 709
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. sexus
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. sexo
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sexus
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 106
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 666
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 913
16. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 655
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. sexo
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sexo