simulador

Forms

simulador (feminine simuladora, masculine plural simuladores, feminine plural simuladoras)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin simulātor (“imitator; pretender”), an agent noun formed from simulō (“to imitate, feign”) with -tor.^[2][1][3] Spanish took the verb simular from the same Latin source in the 15th century, and Wiktionary notes that the noun can also be read as that verb with the agent suffix -dor.^[4][1]

Ovid uses the Latin noun of the god Morpheus, a copier of human shapes, and Sallust of a man who could feign or hide whatever he wished.^[3][5] The same Latin word is Catalan simulador, French simulateur and Italian simulatore.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it from Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario of 1490; the HSMS archive has it in a text of 1441.^[4][7] The early sense is a person who feigns: Nebrija gives Latin simulator and hypocrita, and Percyvall's English is “a fainer, a dissembler”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The Academy defined it in 1817 as a noun, a person who feigns, and in 1884 as an adjective also used as a noun, with its Latin source.^[10][11] In medicine it is a person who feigns an illness;^[12][1][13] Boyd-Bowman has simulador neurasténico from Mexico in 1945.^[12][1][13] The technical sense, a device that reproduces the working of a system, is in the Academy's dictionary of 2001, used chiefly for training those who operate it, as in simulador de vuelo “flight simulator”.^[14][2][15]

Timeline

• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario.^[4]
• 1513 – Nebrija: Latin simulator, hypocrita.^[8]
• 1591 – Percyvall: “a fainer, a dissembler”.^[9]
• 1817 – the Academy: a person who feigns.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy makes it an adjective and gives the etymology.^[11]
• 1945 – simulador neurasténico in Mexico.^[13]
• 2001 – the Academy adds the device used in training.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That simulates or feigns (simular, fingir); also as a noun, a person who does so: Era un simulador hábil y nadie le creía.^[2][16]

Noun

1. (medicine) A malingerer, a person who feigns an illness.^[12][1]
2. (technology) A simulator: a device that reproduces the behaviour of a system under given conditions, mainly to train those who will operate it.^[2][15]

Related words

• simular
• simulación
• simulacro
• disimular
• semejar
• Latin simulātor

Usage notes

Simulador de vuelo is a flight simulator, which reproduces an aircraft's cockpit for training pilots.^[15][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. simulador
3. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. simulātor
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 198
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. simulātor
6. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 335
7. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
8. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 417
9. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 214
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 803
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 978
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. simulador
13. ^ a b c 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. simulador
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. simulador
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. simulador
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. simulador